The Winding Deserts
by Marcellasnow231
Summary: No Man's Land had it secrets, borne out of a war between light and dark, and a collapse of a once-great humanity. But some are deeper and darker than others.
1. Chapter 1

**The Winding Desert**

 **Author Note: Where most Destiny crossover include RWBY I'd thought I'd try something a little different. So, I was wondering, what if seven colony ships escaped the early stages of the Collapse. And these ships were collectively called the SEEDS project by their descendants? That where it leads to Trigun's setting, and the thing about Plants, they kinda remind me of the Traveller, but the problem is that they are interdimensional beings.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

No Man's Land was a desolate world; it was desert everywhere save for the seven cities that most of the humans congregated around. And whatever small towns that laid outside them often were plagued by outlaws and highwaymen, it was where the blue-skinned redheaded woman came in. She was one of the bounty hunters wandering the wastes. Looking down to the Smith and Wesson Tri-lock that she had been given by her father as a gift on her 18th birthday, she smiled.

Her father was a strange one. His trances and the strange mumblings about "the storm" aside, he was a renowned scientist ever since their village appeared mysteriously among the outskirts of December 21 years ago; at that time, he had been newly reborn, from what little he had told her, and he had saved her mother from some Fallen dregs when they first met. They had married and a year after that Ania Solezulam had been born.

December was the second largest city; their industries there were based around some form of metallurgy and the place was well-known for having some of the best gun foundries. During the Great Octovern-December War some 70 years ago, the egomaniac Daimon McCrage had tried to seize them in an attempt to build up armies to unify No Man's Land in an empire with him as the head. It had failed miserably. He had been found dead in his bed, a knife in the heart, the result of a successful assassination attempt.

No one mourned his death. According to records, the man was a lout and had a history of bullying people to do what he wanted done. He was also kind of a lecher and had a propensity to rape teenage girls and young women who had worked for him. Her father also had a poor opinion of McCrage.

"He ruled through fear because he was incompetent," He had lamented when the two had paged through the history books at the library.

She had seen the floating AI that had followed him all her life; it was called Echo, and from what little she knew of the AI it often worked in tandem with him.

Ania readjusted the thin gold leather band that sat around her head. Her hair was in a straight chin-length style that she had worn ever since she was four. Her clothing consisted of a pair of black khaki cargo pants helped up by a gray holstered belt, a black long-sleeve turtleneck, and charcoal below-elbow leather gloves that went over her sleeves. A matching gray leather harness crisscrossed her chest, with one strap held up by two shoulder straps, while a thicker secondary one sat snugly under her unremarkable breasts. It had all joined in the back in the form of a racerback style.

Over the clothing sat a black cape that she had ordered in the catalog six months before she came of age. It had two gold stripes at the bottom edge and the hood was roomy enough that Ania could conceal her upper face and her glowing yellow eyes. The sturdy black buckled boots she wore had been re-soled two days ago: she had worn them out through the various journeys hunting the outlaws that terrorized the wastelands.

JOHANN WESTLAKE – WANTED FOR MURDER, EXTORTION, FRAUD AND THEFT OVER $$6,000.

The caricature on the poster she held in one hand depicted a skinny man with a weak chin, several scars on his faces and a big moustache. He had a smug smirk that Ania wished she could wipe off, and the ID number for the bounty was 231-40-92177. The first number was the area code; this referenced the area his crimes first begun. From what she had recalled it was where the gambling city of New Las Vegas was located. That city was situated 170 kilometres southwest from Old July. 40 represented the city's registry number in the archives that the old colony ships held. The last was far more well-known. It was Westlake's criminal ID number, and it was entered at the time of his first arrest and it was updated with additional info every time he committed another criminal act.

Johann Westlake had begun out as a small-time thug in the new Pozzologio drug cartel, but the more established factions in the drug trade hit back after the newcomers had tried to take it share of the burgeoning opiate trade in Old July and December. It had ended up becoming an all-out turf war including all factions, including the Jaxx Penthousers, a notorious gang that had once operated in the once-wealthy Pretia district of December. Ania had took out the leaders at the behest of an scientist who had suspected that there was old technology that would have been useful to further terraform No Man's Land buried under there. His search had not been fruitless, as during the trip they had found some technology that had been brought over from Earth with the SEEDS projects and left there to rot after Million Knives had crashed the ships on this forsaken world.

Her father, Cegrim Von and several other eggheads had been brought in to study the place they had found. After his AI had scanned the tech it turned out they were specialized computers that were designed to scan things in space and provide the experts there with data they could further study. They were reprogrammed to scan No Man's Land for any abundant water sources, as a further way to supplement the Plants' finite powers.

Johann Westlake begin climbing the ranks of the Pozzologio cartel with alarming rapidity, offing rivals at every opportunity; But when the turf wars had wiped the newly minted cartel out the man had fled into the wastes. He then begun extorting the businesses of the towns he came across and even murdered a few owners along the way. The final straw had come when he had stolen a prototype gun and used it to kill the CEO of DioBrek Limited, as well as his entire family in an attempt to seize control of the company's assets and redistribute it toward crime. The local authorities eventually assigned a starting bounty of five hundred thousand double dollars to Westlake, but as the years passed it slowly ballooned to 3 billion.

The information she had gathered from the denizens of Valdoor had indicated that he was heading toward Dankin Town; this was why she had boarded the bus there.

* * *

A sonata of gunfire rang out in whatever remote corner of No Man's Land; A saloon crumbled to dust under the heavy onslaught. The people had already fled the area when they had heard that the Humanoid Typhoon was in this area.

Five gunslingers stood in front of the destroyed saloon. A blond man clothed in a red trench coat stood up from the barstool. He pushed up his yellow-lensed sunglasses up his nose.

"I finally found you," a giant of a man laughed, "Vash the Stampede." His green mohawk and prosethic arm gave him away as a famed bandit called Descartes. His giant boomerang had already cleaved the roof off the aforementioned building. No one knew how the man had gained his monstrous stature. Some rumors had said he had been volunteered for an experimental super soldier program, others said it was the result of a chemical attack on his home village and others said he had a genetic mutation that caused such enormous growth. It was not uncommon to see such mutants on the world of No Man's Land. Vash had seen many things like that in his journeys, including a blue-skinned family with glowing eyes.

He drew his gun and begun shooting, but the sounds of his gun came out as empty clicks. He panicked and fled, dodging every bullet, ever went as far to creep across the ground like a spider. Once there was a lull in the shootings, Vash hid behind a rock, breathing a sigh of relief. He then tried to sneak away from the bandit's sight.

* * *

"Traveler…" Ania was shocked at the extent of the damage that had devastated Dankin Town; the place had been pocked with bullet holes and there was evidence of explosive-based damage. But the strangest thing about the place was that the entire populace was still alive; when she had asked if there were any fatalities the doctors said there were virtually none.

A golden-haired man in a gray suit and a fedora leaned against one of the remaining walls as she entered the sheriff's building.

"What does he look like?" he asked the frazzled sheriff.

"A short-legged giant in red. Green mohawk, and a metal arm," The officer replied, "I didn't get a good look at him."

"Thanks," the gray-clad man replied, slamming the door behind him as he left the building.

"Whatever you do, stay away from him! For your own good!"

Ania could see the thin cross-shaped gun he carried on his back as he walked away.

She turned to the sheriff.

"Where is Johann Westlake?" she asked, her arms crossed across her chest as she stood in the centre of the room.

"That guy I talked with got him a few hours earlier," The sheriff replied.

She sighed. Another missed bounty, again. Her father wouldn't be happy to hear about it, as much of the extra money she had earned from bounties funded his research to develop new, smaller Plant containers to place in far-flung towns like this one. Even with his intellect he still had to face roadblocks, like a corrupt grant system that favored the well-connected and wealthy over newcomers like him, and political wrangling in the Council of Technological Research.

* * *

"Another denied grant. These Traveler-damned nitwits don't still get it," A tall blue-skinned man cursed again, holding up a rejection letter. He had red hair in a closely chopped buzz cut and his green eyes glowed like nightlights in the drab quarters where he frequently worked.

"Guardian, I understand your frustration. The pointless squabbles these dunderheads indulge in waste resources and slow down innovation," His Ghost, Echo, nodded in agreement, "Even then people tend to let their egos take priority over sound reasoning."

"Cegrim, I've brought tea," a lilac-skinned woman entered the room, carrying a tray with a teapot and two cups. Her waist length silver hair was styled in such a way that it resembled ocean waves, and her yellow eyes gazed at him. She wore a white bustier dress with a thigh-high slit, a coin pendant and a pair of strappy black pumps.

"Thanks, Larymissa," Cegrim took one of the teacups, sipped it and took a long deep breath.

"The last few days has been frustrating. They approved an application to explore alien ruins to the north of Old July. I warned against it, and so did many others!" He spat out.

"And the fact that these ruins have signs of Darkness-caused interference should be enough warning on it own," Echo's flutters resembled the paces that a frustrated person might make around the room.

He had visited the ruins briefly, during a stop in Old July when his daughter was four. When Cegrim had sensed the presence of the Darkness, he had been in a train heading toward Octovern for a conference. It had led him toward the ruin of an alien temple; Whoever had found this temple had been smart enough to _bomb_ the _fuck_ out of this place, and with good reason. He had quickly discovered that it used to be a Hive spawning point before it was abandoned.

Little Ania had been left with her mother at a small hotel while he did the dirty work of purifying whatever remained of that taint with his Light. It had been his first and only time he had even used his powers to its fullest extent. Even then, he wouldn't risk the chances of other people fiddling with the ruins. As a Warlock he was a fountain of knowledge and wisdom, although it had come with its negatives. Like the trances he often went into when he was communing with the storms above December. The stares people sent him when he did that was beyond embarrassing. And there was that hated moniker, the Storm Whisperer; it reminded Cegrim of his glaring difference.

Unlike most Warlocks, he was clad in the civilian attire of No Man's Land as wearing the robes of the class would be highly frowned upon here. There were weird cults in the world's history that had caused a lot of damage. The Sacred Circle of Gil'ead was one such group. They were a group of humans who fanatically adhered to the tenets of the Old Testament of the Bible; they tried to compel the people of No Man's Land in obeying their twisted vison. Their terroristic activities had been brought to a halt with brutal efficacy by No Man's Land's combined forces over fifty years ago. The leaders were well-known for wearing robes. To see old vids of them being paraded down the streets in cuffs reminded Cegrim of how twisted the human species could be, to war among themselves.

His attire consisted of black loafers, gray twill pants, a maroon button-up shirt overlaid by a black, gold and maroon argyle vest. The necktie he wore was woven in shades of olive, drab maroon and bright yellow, and it was tucked in his vest. It was all covered by a white lab coat, and his Warlock bond was wrapped around his left bicep.

"By the Nine, did you get rejected again, my love?" Larymissa asked as she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in closer.

"Yes. I still can smell the rampant cronyism in that fucking application process," he replied as he pulled her in for a passionate kiss.

"I received a letter from our dear Ania today. She said that the previous mayor of Valdoor was murdered by his brother-in law, along with three of his contacts. She killed the man after a year-long hunt two months ago," she caressed his cheek and jaw.

"How much was his bounty worth?"

"Three hundred thousand double dollars, Cegrim. It's a good start for her this year," She chuckled, "I still remember when she was a newborn. She kept us up all night."

"Even as a baby she was quite the introvert. And her explorer streak manifested itself when she was seven months," He let out a laugh, "Ania was constantly getting in things she shouldn't and climbing all over the house."

"Like the time she tried to climb to the counter to steal from the cookie jar?"

"Yes. And I remember that when we enrolled her in art classes, she took to it like a fish in water," he nuzzled Larymissa's neck.

"Are you on the same wavelength?" she swayed her hips.

"Yes," He shivered with anticipation. Tonight was going to be _fun_.

* * *

"All residents, go to your designated shelter areas. The next update will be at 1:30 PM. Please enjoy our music selection," a loudspeaker blared over the nameless bar that Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson had entered.

"What will it be?" The bartender asked as he wiped the moisture off another freshly-washed glass for the umpteenth time.

"A banana sundae," Meryl's answer was met with a nod from the bartender.

"A Mille-feuille with Ceylon tea!" Milly raised a single finger.

"Listen, misses, that gag won't work unless you order milk," a man lifted a table and slammed it down, his gaunt face in a lecherous grin.

"Then we'll give you all the milk you'll want," another man interjected in. His greasy hair looked like it hadn't been shampooed in months.

"Although it wouldn't be free," a third man added, his buckteeth showing.

"But I don't want milk, I want Ceylon tea," Milly's protests were met with derision.

Suddenly, a loud slam came from the ground; Milly's giant stungun hit the table. It then collided with the first man in the face. He yelped in pain, and the two men picked him up by the shoulders.

"I'm sorry!"

"You clumsy bitch!"

"It seems the strap on my gun has broken again," She gave out a nervous chuckle.

"You have a spare strap, do you? Be more careful next time," Meryl's reminder to Milly was kind of embarrassing.

The group ran off, dragging their injured comrade with them.

The door opened again, and a hooded blue-skinned woman stepped in. Meryl couldn't help but stare at her, the fact that her peculiarity made her stand out from the crowd.

"One curry udon soup, please," she approached the counter, a faint frown on her face.

"One moment, please," The bartender answered her, before he brought out Milly's order. He then did the same with Meryl's order.

She seemed to have noticed the stares the duo was sending her.

"Stop staring at me! It's so embarrassing," the woman responded as she pushed her hood off her head, "My name is Ania Solezulam."

Meryl could see her face; there were curving red markings that had circles on the bottom. These had dots on opposite sides of the circles and fang-like markings under them. They went across her glowing yellow eyes and she didn't wear lipstick, unlike most women Meryl had seen so far. Her face was heart-shaped, but it was so plain as to be unremarkable.

"What happened to make your skin that way?" it was one of these rare moments that Meryl desperately wanted to give her partner a good slap on the head.

"It's a very long story, but the short gist of it is that my ancestors tried to flee a war, but they were transformed during that attempt," Her answer shocked the insurance agents, "My family and I are what's collectively known as Awoken. You're probably never seen the rest of my kind."

"Holy shit!"

"So, what is a gunslinger like you doing here?" Meryl had noticed the gun holstered at her right hip.

"I'm seeking Harry Wilkes. He's a nasty fraudster who embezzled billions of dollars from firms he worked with in the past. A passing Catholic priest pointed me toward Fenlarl Town," her answer was not surprising.

"That's where we're going. Vash the Stampede was spotted in that town recently." Milly interjected.

"Are you after the 60 billion double dollars bounty on his head?" Ania's question caught the two insurance agents off guard.

"No way! We're insurance agents with the Bernadelli Insurance Society. We were sent to assess the claims involving the Humanoid Typhoon," Meryl held up her hands in vexation, sweatdrops on her head.

* * *

A hand reached out of the sand, ensnaring the leg of a bounty hunter. A head of spiky blond hair not unlike needles followed; Vash exhaled. He had taken to hiding in the sand to throw off his pursuers.

' _I thought I'd suffocate_ ,' He thought.

"Pardon me?

As the man tripped, he took the moment to pick the man's body for any ammunition. Vash grinned as he inspected the bullet he had just nicked.

"Thanks to you guys… I nearly went to pieces. It's a miracle that I got away," his monologue was quickly cut off as more gunshots rang out to his left; he threw his Colt .40 like one would a boomerang. More of Descartes's henchmen showed up and Vash panicked again, dodging the volleys of gunfire headed his way. He managed to hide in a small rock arch, for a while until he saw one of the gunmen looking out it, searching for him. Grabbing the subject's gun, he aimed it at a nearby rock, using it to draw a funny face on it with the bullets he was firing.

"Don't move now! I've got you in my sights!" he snickered, holding his gun against his pursuer's head.

"Boss, he's over here," he shouted.

"Er, I'd rather see you lower your gun. Quietly," Vash's response was met with disbelief.

"Forget it."

"Surely you don't like pain?"

"I'm used to it,"

The conversation lasted for a few moments; the man didn't notice the boomerang flying at Vash's head.

"GET DOWN!"

It cut through the rock, and simultaneously bisected it. Descartes stepped through the breach. Vash winced in pain, his face serious.

"B-Boss!," the man Vash was chatting with exclaimed.

"Well done. I commend you," Descartes's smirk reminded the red-clad gunslinger of the dozens and dozens of bounty hunters he had faced in the last 20 years.

"—The pain-,"

"—You hurt your pal, too. Where is the justice in that?" Vash asked, a hint of anger in his voice.

"We are not pals, we are partners in fate!," Descartes's sarcastic reply didn't do anything to mollify the blonde's inward concern, "His happiness is my happiness!"

"That's beautiful," he cried crocodile tears, even as he was inwardly formulating a plan to take the giant down.

"Go ahead and shoot me… if that big gun of your isn't for show,"

"I can't stand the sight of blood! The sight of it make me faint!"

"Okay, then! Let's see what happens when you see your own blood!" Descartes kicked the gunslinger Vash had just conversed with. The man landed in his arms, his shuddering cries reminding him of the pain this man was in.

"See how devoted he is? " Descartes pointed it out; Vash was tied up immediately. He screamed as he struggled to break free of the rope.

The sound of three sets of footstep approached in the distance; unbeknownst to the Humanoid Typhoon, they were heading toward him. That encounter would change his life.

* * *

 **Author note: What do you think? Anything to improve on?**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Winding Desert**

 **Chapter 2**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun or it associated characters. Only my OCS are mine, and all concepts associated with Destiny belongs to Bungie.**

 _ **The Tower, Earth**_

The datapads were scattered across the table in the conference room. Five days ago, during the retaking of Freehold, a fireteam of Titans had stumbled across data relating to a 'Project SEEDS'. When their Ghosts had extracted the information from the consoles the details were held on, it had revealed a veritable treasure trove of history that the Warlocks were eager to analyze.

It had caused quite the uproar among all three factions, and Zavala had quite the headache trying to calm them down. Arach Jalaal had demanded that the data be given to his faction only, and Lakshimi-2 was visibly shaken by the revelation that there might be possible human colonies that survived the Collapse. The New Monarchy found themselves mulling over the info, and even there were lengthy debates on what to do in their halls.

Zavala appreciated the latter faction's caution. As much as Arach Jalaal was useful, his demands were often unreasonable, as fleeing Earth would end up costing humanity more in the long run. He didn't realize that his ancestors' attempts to flee the incoming collapse had end up causing billions of deaths. Whatever happened in the Reef had transformed a few million survivors and left them stranded in broken, barely-functional husks of ships.

Thousands of Awoken had migrated from the Reef back toward Earth, as the limited resources there had made survival perilous, even fatal for scores of people there. It was constantly plagued by lawlessness, and even the Queen's Guard at times had to be called in to control the chaos.

343 colony ships had been built, according to the records. From the scans gathered by the Last City's own orbital satellites there were at least 110 surviving ships, most of them struck in the Reef, and many of them served as major Awoken populace centres. The rest had been blown to bits during the Collapse.

The Titan Vanguard sighed again, rubbing his temples. What to do? There were so many unknown factors at play and he would rather not waste precious resources chasing phantom hopes that would be swiftly crushed by whatever forces of the Darkness at play.

"I've noticed that there are some discrepancies, Zavala," the Warlock Vanguard Ikora Rey's voice broke him out of his thoughts, "When we scanned the debris of the Reef, we noticed that traces of at least 7 ships were missing. The Warlocks are still debating about what it really means."

"Yes," He answered, "Even the Titan orders are in a tizzy about the news. There has been reports of brawls between members. Shaxx had advised them to keep fistfights solely to the Crucible after a bout between a Firebreak titan and a newly minted Sunbreaker had left a local bar in the Tower in ruins."

"The buzz got to the Hunters, too. This and that was what they've been talkin' about for days. I get the sense that they are eager to get off planet and explore whatever lost secrets out there," the Hunter Vanguard Cayde-6 added as he gestured to the datapads, "They are gettin' restless and that energy ain't goin' anywhere but out. There have been a ton of fights among my kind, too."

A shaking box was placed amid the pile. Zavala's ghost, Athena scanned it, and turned to him.

"There are five newborn ghosts in there," she told the Titan.

"These are for the offspring of Guardians living on a distant world," The Speaker told the Vanguard, "From what the Traveler told me, two of them has passed on their gifts to them. Seven ships escaped and with it the people on them brought their hopes and dreams there. An interdimensional being brought six Guardians to it, and most live out their lives, not knowing of their true purpose."

Zavala's headaches had magnified to another level. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

"So, as I paraphrase it, there are six untrained guardians on that world, and two have children who need training, too? I find it too far-fetched for my tastes," Ikora Rey's round eyes widened as she spoke again. There were murmurs of agreement from Zavala and Cayde-6.

"It is the truth nevertheless," The Speaker nodded.

* * *

 _ **80 kilometres from Fenlarl Town, No Man's Land**_

The twin suns of No Man's Land beat down on the deserts that was its trademark. The first sun, Delta, was an orange dwarf, while the second one, Trig, was a yellow one.

Cegrim had taught Ania that dwarf stars were of relatively low size and luminosity, and that most main-sequence stars were of that type. The explanations of these types of star had came from an astronomer called Ejnar Hertzsprung, and that a classification system named after another scientist called Morgan Keenan was developed to identify these types of stars. This system used letters; O represented the brightest dwarfs, followed by B, A, F, G, K and M. M represented the dimmest stars. The twin suns were part of a binary star system, with No Man's Land being the fourth of twelve planets. Five moons orbited the world; these were called Uno, Niidama, Trzy, Quattria and Cúig.

Ania could see Trzy and Quattria in the sky alongside the twin stars; These two often were visible during the day, while Uno, Niidama and Cúig showed up at night.

"When we arrive in Fenlarl Town, no karaoke machines for you, MILLY!" Meryl's voice pushed her out of her thoughts; the aforementioned woman had blushed scarlet in embarrassment. Ania had to wonder why the raven-haired woman had said that.

"I've seen them, Meryl. I just don't bother with them. To me, darts and knife throwing boards are way more fun," she giggled.

"I've always liked the jukeboxes better. Sampling musical styles is way more fun than these manly activities," Meryl's reply surprised her.

"The poker tables always are a goldmine of rumors, Ania," Milly added, "I've lost count of how many time just by playing it I always get the latest info for my employers."

"Same here. I find that when gambling, people often lose their inhibitions and blabber info they shouldn't. And when they add alcohol in the mix, it become even more lucrative."

"Like what?"

"I remember one time when I picked up an outlaw's location while I was at a casino in New Las Vegas. There was a poker tournament there. I was one of the spectators, and an entrant was one of his goons. He bragged about his superior nicking some of the gold from the local jewelry stores and gave this guy's location away. After he was eliminated from the tournament thanks to some bad bets, I followed him down an alleyway and interrogated him further before I killed him," The two insurance agents were enthralled by Ania's tale.

"What happened next?" Milly's question was quickly answered.

"Unfortunately, this outlaw caught wind of my approach and fled the city. I followed him to Valdoor, then to Octovern. I was able to kill him, but only after a protracted pursuit that destroyed a saloon, two stables and an illegal gambling den," Ania held up her hands to her shoulders, "When my father found out, he was furious with me for my recklessness."

"How did he get wind of the events?" Meryl's question caught her off guard; that event had been her greatest shame, as Ania's lapse in judgement had cost innocent lives. Twelve people had died, all of them working-class people going about their lives. She had been so focused on getting that bastard that she lost sight of what her actions really did to them. Every one had died by gunshots, 4 by her own gun and 8 by her target's.

"My dad was in the exact same city, visiting a colleague. When he heard of what I did, he took it upon himself to show me the consequences and made agreements to the businesses to have me pay for the damage I caused. It took a large chunk out of the bounty money I earned from killing this outlaw."

"What was the outlaw's name?"

"Peter B. Papadakis," she replied.

"I recall him, Milly," Meryl answered, "We were called up to assess the damage he caused."

"He was wanted for grand theft, murder and racketeering," Milly added, "I recall now. You were the one who cashed in the bounty a year ago!"

"Yeah. The poster said that he was wanted, dead or alive," Ania nodded in agreement.

"Did you hear the rumours about Gerald Fitzgerald?" Meryl's question puzzled the other two women; they both shrugged their shoulders.

"Er...I don't get what you're talking about," Milly retorted.

"Me too," Ania crossed her arms.

"He was once an ultra-rich mining tycoon," Meryl answered, "the rumors swirling around him said that he had arranged a deal for one of the maidens of the Veloute family to marry him fifteen years ago. The would-be bride ran away with a giant of a man who swooped in to save her from an unhappy marriage, and thus a scandal erupted that forced him away from his company. His family booted him from their mansion after he was caught stalking one of the teen daughters of a local businessman."

"Did he intend to abduct the girl?" Ania's question made the two women shudder. It was common knowledge that in the wastelands of No Man's Land that bride kidnapping was a widespread practice. Men who marriage offers were turned down often kidnapped the women and girls they had their eye on and raped them with the intent to impregnate them. This in turn resulted in their families forcing the unfortunate females to marry their rapists. The Catholic Church of this world agitated against this unsavory practice, but at every corner they were met with resistance.

"Yes, according to numerous sources," Meryl replied, "And the whole sordid story came out a few days ago. It seems he got a bounty on his head for rape and murder."

"I wouldn't be surprised if Fitzgerald conceals his face to evade his pursuers," Ania thought back to the societal stigma surrounding full-face coverings in the society of No Man's Land. To cover one's entire face sent the message that you had something to hide, and to do so ended up raising uncomfortable questions in the presence of the authorities there. Even with the threat of sandstorms, the people often kept their face partially uncovered to deflect such queries. Only fugitives on the run from the law did so, as the caricatures on the wanted posters made their faces instantly recognizable.

* * *

 _ **The Boulinger Institute of Plant Research, December**_

The Boulinger Instituite of Plant research was a low-key research facility housed deep in December's downtown core. It had been established by Dr. Jayne Boulinger, a prominent leading researcher of Plants, with help from the Mahran and Singh families. Both families had invested six million dollars in the opening of this building, as they had believed by upgrading the technology needed to create and sustain Plant life, the lives of the people of No Man's Land's could be improved. However, the Council of Technological Research had repeatedly refused to fund the necessary development that the late Dr. Boulinger had enthusiastically advocated for the last thirty years of his life, preferring to fund trans-humanistic experiments instead.

Sixteen tubes lined the walls of the sterile laboratory where numerous scientists worked. The table ran parallel to them, and they were covered with various readouts, graphs and notes. Several of them were discussing some arcane subject matter related to the tubes.

From what Cegrim had recalled from his lengthy studies of the Plants, they were inter-dimensonal entities discovered by scientists on Venus shortly after the Traveler had arrived on Mars. Humanity had briefly flirted with the idea of using them to sustain the human populace, but it had been ended with the advent of the Golden age, and the development of Light-based technologies. But however, during the Collapse, several scientists had advocated the idea of moving away from the Light and using these beings. This project didn't get off the ground, as many of them had been killed during this event.

He had begun his studies in Plants at the prestigious John Hopkins University. During his days there, he had worked up his way from a bachelor's degree in Plant Studies up to the Ph.D he had received fifteen years ago. The defending of his dissertation had been exhausting, as he had to defend his theory about a theoretical increase in Plant power when exposed to a source of quantum radiation. It had been a sweet victory when he had won the right to be called Dr. Cegrim Von.

"Did you hear that Dr. Ernest Radegast was fired from his post last month?" Cegrim Von's concentration was interrupted by the voice of his colleague and long-time friend, Dr. Samuel Digsby.

"I've always known that it was coming for a long time," he replied, "Especially when you factor in his less-than-stellar association with that band of mad scientists."

"Yeah, the Concordant and their experiments," Samuel spat out, "Their unethical ideas never cease to baffle me."

"I wouldn't be surprised to see December place a bounty on his head; he seems to have been implicated in the murder of Dr. Marcelina Bogart by independent investigators there," Cegrim snarled, "Even now I see visions of Dr. Radegast's role in her death in my trances."

Dr. Marcelina Bogart was a prominent bioethicist and medical researcher who had risen to prominence because of her invention of medi-gel, a recent innovation that had begun spreading to hospitals across No Man's Land. She had lashed out at the stagnant culture that had pervaded the Council of Technological Research, and it was a sentiment that Cegrim and Samuel had empathically agreed with.

She had recommended Cegrim to replace Dr. Frederic Jeong as the head of the Plant research team at John Hopkins in December two months ago, but the Council had chosen an incompetent scientist from the Veloute family instead to keep newcomers like him from shaking up the field. This problematic act earned the ire of most of the scientists of No Man's Land. They had begun the process of breaking away from the Council with an intent toward creating a new research authority that wasn't as bogged down in political corruption as the Council was. Samuel and Cegrim had followed suit, they were tired of the monies being wired toward useless research that did little to improve the lives of the struggling people of their homeworld.

Dr. Bogart had been picked over Dr. Radegast to head the Facility of Medical Research at NOVA University in New July last year. From what Cegrim had heard through the whispers of Arc Light, Dr. Radegast was simmering with resentment at the thought of being overshadowed by the woman that he had worked so hard to out pace.

Her murder had occurred in broad daylight. She had been shot by a sniper while she was heading toward a meeting with her colleagues in a high-end café known for their Cajun comfort food. This shocking act had rippled through the community of like-minded scientists. To make it even worse, the police of New July had been bribed to ignore Dr. Bogart's death.

Even if Cegrim had spoken of what he had seen, people would never believe him. There were charlatans all over No Man's Land that took advantage of naïve people by posing as psychics. He found them to be just as despicable as the Council itself. He had the dubious honor of putting down one of them eight years ago in his hometown after a man who called himself the Great Psychic Khan had begin setting up his so-called services there.

Echo had shifted through information on this individual and found out that his real name was Ampreet Singh, and that he was a well-known fraudster with a bounty of three million double dollars on his head. Cegrim had confronted him in an alleyway and ended the man with a single Thunderstrike to his heart before he had turned the body over to authorities. The money was used to secure materials for prototypes, as well as upgrading the formerly run-down laboratory the duo worked in.

"Hopefully someone has the wisdom to end that ass before he causes any more damage," Samuel snorted.

"If only prayer could smite idiots like Dr. Radegast…," one of the scientists working under him muttered under his breath.

"So say we all," Cegrim's gaze refocused on the project he was working on.

* * *

The bounty hunters were celebrating their victory; They had believed that they would be rich. Vash struggled against his restraints for the umpteenth time.

"Good. Now to take him in to the feds,"

He could see the faint outlines of sagarromi and their riders on the horizon. From what he could recall of them, they were large flightless birdlike creatures native to No Man's Land and widely used as steeds everywhere. The only adaption they had was their strong legs, but any wings they had since withered away as they became foragers. They often travelled in small herds across the world, with a matriarch as the head of the groups. Females laid four eggs per year after a lengthy courtship period that lasted up to six months. Juveniles begun out in griseous colors before their tenth year, when their final coat came in and it ranged from a light tawny yellow to a deep chocolate brown. They could live up to be seventy years old, although there were rumours of some living to their nineties.

They were moving closer; from what Vash could tell of all three riders, they were all women. One wore a black and gold cape with the hood up and trousers; she seemed tomboyish. Her glowing yellow eyes were filled with boredom. He recognized her as one of the members of that blue-skinned family he had briefly crossed paths with a few years ago. The raven-haired woman next to her wore a white cloak with matching mini skirts and boots, and a plum bow was tied under her collar. Opaque tights covered her legs. She had black eyes that reminded Vash of his long-dead caretaker. The third woman was clad in a yellow duster with a teal green cape. Her long hair fluttered in the wind; her light blue eyes darted back and forth, before she chuckled nervously. She seemed to be taller than the other two.

"Women? They friends of his?," Descartes's question had interrupted the noisy celebration of his henchmen. They sputtered.

"Are they after our prize?" the query of one of them went unanswered.

"We're going in," the raven-haired woman said, calmly; her two companions looked at her with resolve. They nodded. The blue-skinned woman drew her handgun and pointed it at the men in preparation to fire in case the group did anything funny.

The taller woman hid behind her friend. Their expression looked absolutely silly, as they crept toward Descartes.

"What do you want?" the giant man asked.

"P-Pleased to meet you! I'm Meryl Stryfe from The Bernadelli Insurance Society,"

"I'm Milly Thompson,"

"Please take this as a token of goodwill," Meryl Stryfe held out a box of doughnuts.

"I prefer macarons," The blue-skinned woman muttered under her breath.

"Real smooth, ma'am," Milly's retort made Meryl's eyes roll.

"What're you doing here? You're with him?" Descartes's question was aimed at the woman. Vash laughed, he found it hilarious that another person would mix him up with another. It was one of his tricks that kept bounty hunters off his trail.

"No! We're here on the behalf or the Bernadelli Insurance Society…for Vash the…" Shots rang out, and all braced for the incoming firefight.

"What!?,"

A smoke grenade exploded behind Descartes, blinding the giant. Gunshots rang out again and amidst the smoke a figure could be seen. The distraction enabled Vash to undo the ropes that bound him, albeit with some difficulty. The smoke dissipated to reveal a man in a grey duster and fedora. He aimed for Descartes again, firing his rifle again.

"I finally found you, my 60 billion double dollars beauty," he laughed maniacally, "I am Ruth Loose…the bounty hunter called Constance Rifle."

"Vash the Stampede, I am here for your head," he pushed up the brim of his hat.

"I've seen that guy before," The blue skinned woman's face darted around the area, her senses already on edge, "Back in Dankin Town I saw him at the sheriff's office. He took down Johann Westlake, a well-known gang enforcer."

"Your naaaame, pleeeease?" Vash's query was promptly answered.

"Ania Solezulam," She turned toward the blonde, "We have to get out of here."

There were murmurs of agreement. The billowing dust covered the group's retreat; while riding the sagarromi Vash saw the box of doughnuts. His stomach gave out a big rumble. He had realized that while Descartes was pursuing him, he hadn't eaten in the last 36 hours.

He reached for the box of heavenly delights. It was a self-admitted obsession, but Vash liked them because it reminded him of Rem. Of how she told love and peace were self-perpetuating circles, just as much as violence was.

"This world is…made of love and peace!" he gave a big cheesy grin, flashing a peace sign, before he demolished the box of doughnuts in record time. The three women promptly sweatdropped.

"I'm glad you enjoy your job, but I think you're a little late," Descartes's voice broke Vash's train of thought.

"Get ready, guys. This may turn out to be harder than we thought," Ania gripped her gun. She looked around the scene. Ruth Loose was still firing at the green-mohawked giant. Vash followed suit, drawing his Colt .40. Descartes threw his boomerang at him and through the hail or gunfire, Ania begun darting back and forth, dodging the stray bullets with graceful skill. Vash picked up the rope. He had determined that the boomerang Descartes had was the key to beating the two peacefully.

"Damnit, what's going on," Meryl's confused query was ignored, although she had quickly taken out twin derringers.

Ania leaped out of the way of an incoming boomerang, which Ruth had already dodged minutes earlier. Making a second jump midair, she landed on a ledge. She fired again with the intent to draw Descartes's attention. Vash had tied a bowline knot in the rope that was used to bind him. Timing was key in this plan, and it was something that the blue-skinned bounty hunter had silently understood.

Descartes caught his boomerang. He was already getting pissed at Ruth Loose, as he threw another salvo at the gray-clad blond. Vash sprang in action, he threw the loop at it; it missed. Ruth fired at Descartes again; both Vash and Ania had begin nimbly weaving through the hail of bullets.

Milly took out her stungun. Stepping forward, she fired it at the two, intending to use herself as a distraction. It succeeded, as the two men the group was battling quickly turned their attention to her. The boomerang was quickly thrown at her; it was in that moment that Vash's looped rope wrapped around it. He tugged at it, guiding it trajectory back toward the two men after him. It promptly crashed into Ruth and Descartes, knocking them out cold.

"Oops. Too Late. It's only fun until someone gets hurt!" His face had a catlike expression on it.

"Agreed. Your overblown ego never ceases to amuse us," Ania snorted.

"Farewell! And don't hesitate to get that brain of yours checked," Meryl scoffed.

"-Vash the stampede... Vash-," the two injuried men muttered, both in obvious pain, as Descartes's boomerang had weighted the two men down.

Vash gave the women a big goofy grin, his pearly whites showing. He gave them a thumb up.

"Looooove and Peeeeace! Looooove and Peace!" his jig was not shared by Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, who didn't even believe that this man was the Humanoid Typhoon.

"That's him all right," an nervous Ania was trying to pacify them, "I've seen his wanted poster. All of them got some of his features wrong.'

"Yeah, I've seen them. And she's right," he admitted with some semblance of amusement or nerves; he couldn't tell either apart at this moment.

* * *

 **Constructive criticism please. No FLAMES please.**

 **I've always though that Vash's goofy and loveable personality is hiding some serious shit he went through. The fact that he has a brother out for his blood, and unwittingly participated in a destruction of a city has given him serious issues. But Rem does have a point. Violence begets violence, and it has been a long-running theme through Trigun.**

 **Funnily enough, he could also be the Cayde-6 of his world for the same reason. Cayde lost his son and wife in the collapse, and he doesn't remember them. His gambling debts was the reason why he was converted to a exo, and even then the reboots that all Exos go through may had probably scrambled his memories.**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Winding Desert**

 **Chapter 3**

 _ **[Flashback]**_

 _The bustling crowds of Augusta gave no heed to the young blue-skinned toddler gazing at the fountain; She seemed to have wandered off. She stepped up to it. Looking at the coins in the bottom, she tried to reach for them, only to be caught by a strong gloved hand._

" _Careful!" The man who had caught her had a head of needlelike hair and green eyes that reminded her of the tiles at the bottom of this fountain._

" _wanna 'oins," she replied, trying to reach these shiny round things. They were fun to play with, but daddy always kept them out of her reach._

" _Maybe you will want to play with this instead?" He took out a palm-sized bouncing ball in teal, red, purple, white and green._

" _NO!"_

 _He restrained the young child, as he didn't want her to get in trouble. It was a well-known fact that at that age they were prone to do things they shouldn't._

" _What's your name? Mine's Vash, by the way."_

" _A-Ania," she squeaked. Her red hair reminded Vash of rose petals, and her glowing yellow eyes made her stand out in the crowd._

" _Where's your parents?" he asked. She burst in tears as she couldn't see her mommy and daddy anywhere around here._

' _She is obviously lost,' Vash thought, 'Best to keep her with me.'_

 _He picked Ania up, cradling her like he saw the women doing with their children._

" _Shush… everything is gonna be ok. I'll find your parents," he promised the wailing girl._

 _The search for her parents took him all over the local area. No matter how much he tried to calm her, she burst in tears once again. It was only through the display of a pet store that he was able to distract her. The seven kittens on display were very energetic. Ania giggled as one of the creatures tried to leap on a ball, only for it to roll away._

" _Wanna kitty. Wanna kitty." She chanted, as she tapped on the window._

 _Vash laughed. He admitted that he also liked cats, they could be amusing at time. There was one that had been following him for the last three years. He called the black cat Kuroneko-sama. The animal was a nice respite from the frantic shooting and chases that he often wound up in._

 _He saw a couple who looked like the young girl approach. The man, which he assumed to be the father had red hair in a buzzcut and glowing green eyes. His gaze was otherworldly, as if he could see through Vash itself. Although this trait he found to be a bit creepy, the garb the man was clad in was that of an ordinary scientist expect for a mysterious armband on his bicep. This image belied the power in his body that Vash perceived with his Plant senses. It spoke of crackling electricity and powerful storms. The man was the eye of the hurricane, and the red-clad gunslinger knew it well._

 _The woman who accompanied him had the same exact glowing yellow eyes as Ania. She was clad in a scarlet coat and practical travelling boots in taupe covered her feet. The tights she wore was in a diamond pattern and it was black. She had lilac skin and her waist-length hair was silver._

" _My little Ania! I was so worried about you!" she gushed, as the child ran into her arms._

" _Thanks for watching out for our daughter. She is quite the explorer, and this isn't the first time she has gotten lost," the man's eyes were filled with gratitude and relief._

" _G-Glad to be of help," he laughed nervously, scratching his head._

 _ **[End Flashback]**_

* * *

A black cat with green eyes traversed the rafters of Schroeder's Saloon, a well-known fixture in Fenlarl Town. It had first been established by one Chris Schroeder, a local historical figure who was well-known for his hospitality. He had built this place to be the local meeting place of the town, although a business rival had also established one across the street from where it stood. However, the two saloons had attracted vastly different crowds in their first days and ever since it had held the reputation for being especially popular with bounty hunters and gunslingers while the latter attracted mainly the locals.

The drinks there were dirt cheap, and the gambling tables there were filled to the brim. In one corner, a stage was built there. The band there performed with improvised instruments, like a cigar box guitar and jugs.

The bartender there stood at a good 7 feet plus two inches; he looked like he could throw a good haymaker. His raven hair was slicked back, and his face had some stubble. His body was muscular, even by No Man's Land's standards. He wore a dirty ecru flannel shirt with rolled-up sleeves and hard-wearing olive pants. On his feet were cowboy boots, softened by years of wear and tear.

Meryl Stryfe and Ania Solezulam was nursing drinks while Milly Thompson and Vash played the card game War out of sheer boredom.

"War is the most immature card game ever made, Ania," The insurance agent snorted, "It is so repetitive a sane person would quickly get bored of it in a few minutes."

"Agreed, let's not go there," the redhead answered, "I enjoyed it as a child but looking back on it, I realize that it is a really dumb idea for a game."

"Speaking of card games, here comes another brawl," their heads turned toward the commotion. An effeminate man had begun pointing his gun at a second man with beady eyes and buckteeth. That man responded quickly, drawing his own gun. They begun shooting at each other, swearing and insulting each other.

The bullets began ricocheting off the walls, while in the panic the band quickly fled the place. The bartender moved quickly, creating a dome of purple light that deflected stray bullets.

"All under the dome!" He bellowed, his baritone voice echoing around the saloon. Meryl, Ania, Milly and Vash had followed his order, along with a dozen of the patrons. The rest began shooting at each other, riled up by the two's argument.

The man moved through the brawl, knocking out unruly patrons with brutal precision. Some of the most egregious offenders were killed, as the man had determined that they presented a clear danger to innocents through some unknown means. Like one man who was bragging about molesting a ten-year-old boy, and another who was a serial killer.

The hackles of Ania's neck had stood up at the antebellum man's proclamation. If there was one thing that everyone on No Man's Land hated with a passion, it was pedophiles like this man. To the inhabitants here, children were worth more than gold and to sexually violate one meant the person was at the bottom rung of society. They deserved a fate worse than death. No one cared about these sickos; the guards at the only prison on No Man's Land were happy to let the general populace torture and rape pedophiles there.

"What's going on?" Milly asked, her blue eyes darting back and forth.

"A pair of drunken slobs just decided to duke it out over a measly card game," Ania snapped back.

"Because a person decides to challenge a bad call doesn't give him the right to take pot-shots at the one calling shots," The bartender interjected, "I've seen too many arrogant idiots like them. By the way, my name's Markus Granlund."

"Agreed, these two were so sloshed they couldn't think clearly," Meryl nodded.

"Their egos were so inflated, it could eclipse Trig itself," Ania's comment was met with murmurs of agreement.

"DADDY! DADDY!" Two seven-years-old boys ran toward Markus Granlund; They looked virtually identical save for one boy wearing orange and the other, lime. The resemblance between the three totally floored the group.

"Are they yours?" Vash's questioned, his curiousity was piqued.

"Yes, I'm a father of four. These two are my eldest. Their names are Tyrion and Tyson," he answered, "Tyrion wears orange, while Tyson is the one in lime."

"And the others?"

"A two-year-old girl, her name is Giselle and a newborn boy called Adam,"

The dome dissipated; Vash, Meryl, Milly and Ania stepped over the bodies of the knocked-out patrons. All had been amazed by the man's ability to conjure such a thing. But when Ania had seen a flower-shaped artificial intelligence appear above Granlund's shoulder, she was flabbergasted.

"You too? I've seen my father with the same thing," She sputtered.

"What is his name?" The AI asked.

"Dr. Cegrim Von," she replied, "He's a scientist and a leading authority in Plant research."

The AI begun scanning Ania, much to her chagrin. Vash, Meryl and Milly were beyond confused at this scene, as they had viewed her as a friend, not a lab rat.

"You have the Light," It said, "just like my Guardian's children. You inherited it."

Ania muttered curses underneath her breath; she didn't understand what the _fuck_ the _thing was raving about_. The fact that the thing called Markus Granlund the exact thing that Echo had called her father creeped her out to an extent.

"You're just like us, blue lady," Tyrion chimed in.

"Don't be afraid," Tyson giggled, "Our teacher taught us that we could be whatever we wanted to be."

* * *

 **The Guardian Dorms, the Last City**

Tamah Fiso brushed the tangles out of her curly black shoulder-length hair. Her olive skin had a sleeve tattoo in traditional Samoan designs on one arm and a mole under her left eye. Her brown eyes were almond-shaped, and she was clad in her sleeping garb. It consisted of a tank top with the logo of the New Monarchy emblazoned on it and striped red and white pajama pants.

She had been awoken at an unholy hour by her Ghost, Michael. He had told her that he had received summons from the Vanguard and the Speaker, she and her fireteam were to come to the Tower at 6 am, pronto.

"Mommy?" Her half-awoken son walked into the room. He had grayish blue skin, the same exact eyes as her and messy black hair that was much more luxuriant than his awoken kin. He wore a pair of gray pajama pants and a red T-shirt.

"Sione, I've been summoned to the Tower. I'll have to inform your teacher when I get back," The Titan sighed. If there was one thing she hated most about Guardian life it was being separated from her son for extended periods of times.

The boy was the result of a drunken celebration after a mission involving two fireteams; her team was among them. They had been assigned to take out a rising Fallen leader among the House of Devils. It was a lengthy and difficult battle but it was a resounding success when the warlock on her team, Hachiyama Taeko, had thrown a Nova bomb at the newly risen Archon. The Void, That Which Lies Beneath, had feasted on the offering she had given up to it.

After the mission debriefing, she had joined her fellow Titans at the Blustery Brew. During the night she had met the Titan of the other fireteam, an Awoken man. They had drunk and rejoiced together, and after the pub closed for the night they had quickly moved to his apartment. One thing had led to another, and it was two months after that incident during a routine exam Tamah's pregnancy was detected. It had been quite the awkward conversation when Zavala had temporarily relieved her of her duties when she had reached the fifth month of her pregnancy.

"Will I have to go to the Higuchi's?" The boy asked.

"We'll have to see," she replied.

A knock resounded on the doors of their shared quarters; Sione ran to the door. He opened it to reveal Taeko. The Japanese woman was clad in a pink yukata with red pinstripes. A white hanhaba obi was wrapped around her waist. She had quite the bedhead, and even now Tamah could hear her muttering curses in her native tongue under her breath.

Some of the language brought up imagery that the Titan would rather not entertain in her head, even at this hour. Tamah had installed a censor mod in Taeko's Warlock hood without her teammate's knowledge for exactly this reason. She was well-known in the Tower to be one of the most foul-mouthed guardians, and the few others who matched her track record were mostly Titans or Hunters.

The Vanguard had commended Tamah for this act, as they felt that Taeko's inability to watch her language was a liability. But despite this failing Taeko was a proficient scholar and author, publishing books on diverse topics relating to LBTQ matters.

* * *

The Speaker and the Vanguard had gathered at their respective positions at the taskforce briefing room; it was large enough to seat 60 people comfortably. Forty Guardians filtered into the room; Most of the Humans and Awoken were half-asleep, and some of them showed up in their sleeping garb. The Exos were somewhat confused; their optics blinked and some of them wrung their hands.

Zavala cleared his throat.

"As all of you know, a few days ago Fireteam Sunbeam found data on the SEEDS project in one of Clovis Bray's facilities during the retaking of Freehold six days ago. These logs detailed the ships of an ill-fated escape and colonization effort that led to the creation of the Awoken and the establishment of the Reef," the Awoken Titan explained, "May you please take the lead, Ikora?"

"343 ships were built for the attempt, but however during this attempt the events that created the Awoken also ended up destroying 233 ships. That was the original thought, but when we made orbital scans of the debris fields we found that traces of at least 7 ships were missing. That leaves at least 226 demolished ships from this futile effort to escape the Collapse," The Warlock gestured to the list on the holographic panel at the front of the room, "The names highlighted in green are known Awoken outposts, while the blackened-out names are of destroyed ships."

The original names of the Rux Lupalis, Wandering Stars, Mahrik Nos, and Salim Nei were among these highlighted. Most of the Guardians in the room had visited these outposts at some point, as part of their duties.

Salim Nei was the site of a thriving black market that dealt with contraband. There had been many times that Guardians had been sent there to take out arms dealers who sold weaponry to the Fallen houses there. It was also a large hub of trafficking, be it slaves or illict drugs; if there was something that both the Guardians and the Queen's Guard detested equally, it was slavery. The Queen welcomed the Guardians' assistance in taking out slaver rings as she also had the same low opinion of them.

Mahrik Nos was also a den of iniquity; It was one of the largest criminal hideouts in the Reef. It had everything the veteran criminal desired, including brothels, a thriving black market, mercenaries who carried out contract killings for a price and nooks and crannies where contraband could be stashed. The Vanguard also sent Guardians there to assassinate arm dealers whenever needed.

Rux Lupalis was a sprawling Awoken refugee camp. Many newly revived Reefborn Guardians had been found there. They often were banished to this forsaken place, as their ilk were not accepted in most Awoken populaces because of the Reef Wars. Some of them were compliant and willingly left with the Guardians sent to retrieve them, but others had to be forcibly brought to the Last City for training. Two of them were among the audience.

The Wandering Stars were the only outpost that preserved its original name. It consisted of Awoken who were exiled for daring to speak out against Mara Sov, and various malcontents who had entirely different visions for the Reef. All of them bore the brand of the Outcast for this reason, and very few ships dared touch this outpost, for they feared the Queen's wrath.

"Who were the creators of this project?" A hunter with almond-shaped eyes and blonde hair asked; she was Mirai Harding, a Hunter of Japanese and English descent who had been revived in Old Surrey. She had been an Olympic gymnast in her previous life and had won a silver medal at the last event before the Collapse. From what little she could remember, she had died defending two young gymnasts she was mentoring.

"From what little we know, the data on their creators were lost in the Collapse. So far, the manifest is what we currently know about the SEEDS project," Ikora replied.

"And if I am correct, the names with a star beside are the missing ships?" A female Samoan Titan asked; She had been found in Old Sydney. Tamah Fiso was once a proficient rugby player and there were records there of her exploits in the women's leagues during the end of the Golden Age. She had been identified as a rising star in her previous life, with a few great plays that would have became legendary if not for the Collapse.

"Exactly," The Speaker nodded, "After Oryx's death some of the Light returned to the Traveler. It showed me a series of visions. The first was of a desert planet with two suns. I then saw six Guardians standing in a circle under these suns, then two of them stepped toward me with children in tow. I then saw a light bulb-shaped container that held an interdimensional being."

"What were the classes of these Guardians?" Yuri Petrovich Sokolov, a Warlock of Russian descent asked. He had been revived in Trostland nearly 70 years ago. It was a well-known fact that he was one of the very few Warlocks who cussed at the same level as Hachiyama Taeko. Yuri also had a love for vodka; he had helped open a distillery in the Last City to produce the liquor that he loved so much.

"A Warlock and a Titan," The old priest answered, "There were one child following the Warlock, while the Titan had four."

* * *

 **Fenlarl Town, No Man's Land**

Harry Wilkes was running for his life; Another bounty hunter was after his head. He had managed to evade the last three in the last few months but this one was much more persistent. He called this one the Blue Lady because of her unusual skintone. The bitch was much more agile than her fellow hunters, as she had double, even triple jumps. Her reflexes were also above average, as she darted back and forth, dodging anything he could throw at her to delay her.

Wilkes could recall when and where this life on the run had all started from. It had been a gradual decline, as he begun out skimming insignificant amounts from his employers to feed his gambling addiction. It had snowballed, as he had started borrowing from loan sharks in the city of August. It was only after he was caught that he was fired, and he repeated the cycle at four other firms. But eventually other businesses had caught on and barred him from their premises. He had then turned to fraud, scamming people with various schemes for the last decades. He used it to repay his debtors, even as he stole money from victims. But it wasn't until authorities in the city finally caught on to Wilkes that he had fled the place.

The most recognizable features were his unusually hairy legs, so Wilkes covered it up. But then the wanted posters had zeroed on his next most recognizable features- his protruding eyes. This was a by-product of his hyperthyroidism, and he took medicine daily to control it. However, his supplies had ran dry two months ago, as he was too busy fending off bounty hunters like her to care about this small detail. He had donned a balaclava to make it harder for people to recognize him. Unfortunately, the Blue Lady, like the previous bounty hunters after him had recognized this specific feature and she was on his trail. No matter how much he tried to throw her off his trail, she was tenacious.

He threw another stolen throwing knife at her; she danced gracefully out of the way, before she fired her gun again. When he saw a ladder, he dove for it as he believed that it would give him an easy getaway. Climbing it he came up the roof of one of the residences. He threw a smoke grenade he had purchased on the black market with his ill-gotten funds, before he ran across it. He had judged that this house's neighbour was close enough that he could make a parkour leap over the gap, and it was in the attempt that he was shot in the leg.

"OH, YOU FUCKING SLUT!," Wilkes had realized that his pursuer had caught up to him. He aimed the gun he had filched from a town sheriff days ago at her and fired, only to hear empty clicks. He swore again as he had realized that he had used up all his ammunition evading the last bounty hunter pursuing him. He rolled out of the way of a well-aimed blow aimed at knocking him out, before he replied with a punch, which the Blue Lady swiftly dodged. This left an opening that the woman had ruthlessly took advantage of, taking out a telescoping bo staff that she twirled deftly. Every blow from it hurt like hell and he soon blacked out from the excruciating pain.

* * *

Ania Solezulam stood over her unconscious captive; he had been tied up with an escape-proof rope that she had purchased for her chosen profession. The bo staff had been an old standby from her teenage days; after she had encountered a gang trying to corner her, so they could sell her into slavery Ania had used an old closet rod picked straight from the dumpster behind her to beat them all to unrecognizable pulps with it. Her agility from hours of dance practice had helped, as she had become quite unpredictable and it was hard to know where she was headed.

Her father had enrolled her in martial art classes to help her refine this skill, as he knew she needed a short-range weapon in case thing got too near for her taste. She had eventually found that her bo was good for knocking out targets whenever they needed to be taken alive, and she had lost count of how many time she had used it in both extended and retracted forms.

She had begun the process of dragging Harry Wilkes through the streets in Fenlarl Town toward the local federal outpost. The local people stared at her, although she had gotten used to them. It was still embarrassing, even her parents had privately admitted to her that they hated the stares people sent them.

"Another successful bounty haul, Solezulam. Congratulations, you earned your first title. The Blue Dancer, isn't it?" Autavio Demarios, a fellow bounty hunter and acquaintance was there.

"Seems legit," she nodded, looking up at the displays showing her name, identification picture and her new title.

"This will be your moniker in the Bounty Hunter's registry from now on," A doe-eyed clerk typed away at her typewriter, as she hammered out the details of Ania's most recent haul.

He was a tall, fourty year old man clad in a violet and green fringed poncho. His face was worn from years of traversing the deserts, while his sea green eyes shone with pride. He had been Ania's second mentor; The man had taught Ania the ropes of bounty hunting. It was Autavio who had taught her that bounties were graded through a system called the Nippon Classification Grades. It ranged from E for the lowliest criminals, who were wanted for minor crime like petty thefts and battery, up to a S-rank, which were reserved for the most violent and dangerous criminals, like Vash the Stampede and Million Knives. He also taught her that there were abbreviations for the most common terms printed on the wanted posters. For example, DOA meant Dead or Alive, while MTA equated to Must be Taken Alive.

"Fuck you, fuck you, Fuck YOU," Harry Wilkes swore as he woke up, realizing that he had been caught; Ania had already picked up a roll of breathable gag tape from the reception desk.

"Shut up, you scamming asshole," she replied as she stuck a piece of it on his face. He was promptly hauled away by muscular men who looked more like Augusta mob enforcers than legitimate employees of the Federal Bounty Hunter Agency, as their tattoos of the Crucifix and quotes from the New Testament attested to that fact. To make it worse the men wore black pants and white wife-beaters.

"Jesus Christ, I never get why these men are dressed like that," Autavio sighed, running his hand through his curly auburn hair.

"By the Traveler, I've seen worse," Ania answered, "There are gang enforcers in Neon City who dress like clowns. It's ultra-creepy."

"Agreed, I recall seeing them too," he nodded, "It's the fucking uncanny valley effect in action."

It was a very well-known theory on No Man's Land; The more realistic the robot, the more disturbing to people around them. Even in the old movies that was brought to this world, there were some about robots that brought it to life in very disturbing ways.

The same could be said about clowns. Their grotesque blood-red grin and their whitened face creeped the two bounty hunters out as children, and even now they were reminded of the giggling mask of death when their minds wandered toward the topic. The grotesque outfits made it worse, as the bright color highlighted the makeup, and the giant shoes made a clop-clop sound that was frightening.

* * *

The bustling marketplace of Fenlarl Town had people scurrying to and fro, and some people were haggling over wares. A man dragged a certain black cat behind him, quickly followed by his son who was begging for the cat to be let go.

Meryl Stryfe looked over at Vash; he was playing ball with several children. Milly was heading toward a stall to buy some food.

"I've heard some rumors," an extremely skinny man with a cyborg leg said.

"What kind?" his wife, a portly woman with a bee-stung lips asked.

"It has to do with-,"

"AAAAAAARRRRRRGH!" Vash had just slipped on a rotten banana peel. He crashed into Meryl, bowling the insurance agent over. She landed on his belly, and the scene drew stares from the crowds. Both had turned a nice shade of beet red at the attention this scene produced.

"Nothing to see there," Meryl raised her hands defensively. She desperately wished that the ground would swallow her up, as this scene the two made looked like something out of a romantic comedy.

"Hey there!," Ania ran up to them; seeing the scene, she laughed. It was one of the most hilarious scenes she had ever seen, only eclipsed by the time her classmate Rylie and she pranked the principal of their high school with a water bucket balanced above the door to his office on April's Fool Day six years ago.

"I've already cashed in my bounty, guys. I got 400,000 thousand double dollars for Harry Wilkes," she spoke after her laughter had abated.

"That fraudster?" Vash's face was quizzical.

"Yeah,"

"I remember him. He tried to defraud the Bernadelli Insurance Society a few years ago," Milly threw her two cents in. She had been working for her employer two years longer than Meryl and after her previous partner had left her job to pursue opportunities at other venues, she had been on her own for five years. Meryl had been assigned as her partner after she had graduated from NOVA university two years ago, getting a degree in accounting and music there.

"How?," Vash's query made her pause.

"He made false claims. All were investigated thoroughly," Milly answered. Even though she was a ditz, she had a surprisingly good memory.

A gun was pointed at Vash's head. The man holding it was short, and had a gaunt face. He wore a brown tweed suit, a purple bowtie and practical oxfords.

"Excuse me while I take his head," he said.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Winding Desert**

 **Chapter 4**

Cegrim Von could still remember the day he was reborn into the Light. The painful burning sensation of his body being reknitted back together was something that he had relived every night, even with the loving embrace of his wife there to reassure and comfort him.

"Eyes up, Guardian," Echo's first word to him in this new and strange world back on Earth had woke him from a long slumber, or he thought. The fact that he was dead had shook him to the core. He could recall travelling across Old Scotland, killing Fallen and Hive as he came across them. He remembered the day he had met Larymissa Solezulam in the ruins of Old Surrey. She had fled a marriage that her grandmother had tried to force upon her, and as a result she left the Reef, never to return there.

 _ **[Flashback]**_

 _Fallen Dregs had surrounded the Awoken woman, and one was about to deal the killing strike, when Cegrim had intervened with his gun and his powers. He gunned three of them down before he placed himself between her and the other two. They tried to stab him with their knives, but he blocked one with his forearm, and dealt the other a powerful Thunderstrike that killed it. It was in that moment another snuck up to him and stabbed him in the back. Cegrim had been nearly killed but it bought Larymissa enough time, so she could kill the last remaining dreg. She had then removed his Warlock hood, intrigued by her mysterious savior. Her surprise that it was another Awoken was etched on her face, but it was in that moment she had noticed his wound._

 _Larymissa had took out her first aid kit that she had cobbled together from supplies she had bought in Salim Nei before she had left on a ship alongside several other refugees who were heading for Earth. She had begun taking out bandages and syringes. She struggled to remove Cegrim's armoured robes, while the man panted heavily in pain._

" _This will-"She was quickly interrupted, as the wound began to knit itself back together, aided by the hovering flower-shaped intelligence that hovered over Cegrim. She begun working on it, injecting blood coagulant, followed by painkillers before bandaging the wound._

" _The Light will always take care of it, every time," it said, "But thanks for the help."_

 _Cegrim stood up, pulling her along with him. His armoured hand wrapped around hers, and he led her away from the place they had first met._

* * *

 _They had been travelling for the last two months, as they searched for human settlements. Cegrim had protected her from the monsters roaming the old British Countryside, and in turn Larymissa helped him with the first aid whenever possible._

 _The curiosity grew in Larymissa's eyes, as she begun caressing Cegrim's face, tracing every line of his masculine face. They had found an abandoned building to shelter in for the night. His entire arms were bare, as were his chest. The pants of his armour stayed on, for now. She begun nibbling at his lips, begging for entrance. He allowed the kiss; in some part of his brain, he found her attractive. Her delicate face and shapely body aroused his most primal instincts, they urged him to ravish her and claim her as his own._

 _But Cegrim held back, it was unbecoming for a Guardian to give in to this. They were defenders of humanity, as Echo had reminded him. But he indulged Larymissa's wish to touch him, she was intrigued by him just as he was by her. And even as he gently caressed her topless body, he returned the kiss, before the duo fell asleep in the bed in the master suite there._

* * *

 _Valerian was a small, isolated village on the coast of Wales. There were no landing pads, no high technology, and it suited Cegrim Von and Larymissa Solezulam just fine. They had built a small house from old home schematics they had salvaged from a drawer in the office of a long-deceased architect. It had three bedrooms and 2 and a half bathrooms, with a small kitchen and island that connected to a great room._

 _The entire village had helped pitch in the building of their new home, as it was a long time since they had any newcomers. The Awoken couple had plans to marry as soon as possible. The exterior walls of the entire house were painted a taupe color, with accents of red and white. The interior, however, were a different story. It was painted a bluish gray with gold and red accents, while simple furniture was bought locally and painted to match._

 _Cegrim and Larymissa looked out the window to the coastline outside, both in a silent, yet enjoyable embrace. There was a sudden flash of light that blinded both, and through his Warlock senses he could sense the ripping of this village from it rightful place in the space-time continuum. It overwhelmed him, and he promptly blacked out, still holding his lover protectively._

" _Guardian, eyes up," Echo's voice called to him hours later; he slowly shook off the unconsciousness. Getting up on his feet he saw desert outside the windows of the newly built home, and in the horizon, two suns were setting._

 _They weren't in Kansas anymore, metaphorically speaking._

 _ **[End flashback]**_

"Is it that memory of your rebirth, again?" Larymissa asked, as she ran her hands up and down Cegrim's chest.

"Yes," He sighed. That day reminded him too much of his difference. The warlock wished he could be an ordinary person again, but bygones was bygones. He had to accept his new reality, with the Light pumping through his body, and the Arc energy he often communed with told him many things, some he found slightly discomforting.

"I still worry about Ania, ever after all these years. I pray to the Nine that she hasn't inherited your gifts," Larymissa murmured, stroking his closely- cropped hair.

"Me too. I fear that she won't take the news well if we were to tell her," He sighed.

"We both know that she was among the troublemakers at school, despite her good grades," she reminisced, "She was always stealing things from the school bullies."

"And Ania was quite disruptive in class, too. A school psychologist told me she showed classic signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She found it difficult to focus on one task, and she was constantly darting all over the place," Cegrim sighed, "Not to count the many detentions she earned for her misbehaviour."

"Yes, Ania disobeyed her teachers on many occasions by not showing up there," Larymissa frowned, "We lost count of how many time we had to pick her up from her favoured hangout spot and bring her to school."

"Yes. Trumbeak's Arcade, that place had the biggest collection of arcade games in the town. It was the daily hangout for her and her buddies when she was a teen," He sat up, "She hated detention just as much as the other kids who were there."

"One of her friends was also among the troublemakers, too. If I recall correctly, her name was Rylie Winder," Larymissa pointed out.

"Yes. I remember the Winders. They had some problems in their family,"

"Like what?"

"A drug addict for a brother and his enabling mother. And the father was sent to jail for first-degree murder when Ania and Rylie was in ninth grade," the Warlock noted, "The Winder family fell apart the year after their graduation from high school. The brother overdosed on fentanyl, and the mother was arrested for drug dealing a few years later. Her father led a prison riot which resulted in him being sent to the electric chair along with six others."

* * *

 **Fenlarl Town**

Markus Granlund paced around around the room, while his eldest twin sons watched while they ate their after-school snack. They had been amazed that there were another one like them and their siblings, and that she was real.

"What do you think about the blue lady we just met?" Tyrion's question broke him out of his thoughts.

"She's Awoken," Markus' Ghost, Kimmer, corrected him, "Her ancestors tried to flee the Collapse."

"The fact that she told me her father had a Ghost shocked me. And there's the other problem. She inherited the Light, just like you two," he noted.

"I've seen her jumps while she was in pursuit of Harry Wilkes. She definitely is a Hunter," Kimmer added, his nodes twisting as he contemplated the meeting they just had in Schroeder's saloon.

"What about us? What's our classes?" The twins's question caught Markus off guard.

"Based on your personality matrixes and projected growth rate, you two would be Titans, just like your dad," The Ghost replied.

"Yes, I've lost count of how many times the two of you got in fights with your fellow schoolmates. And the fact that you fought the schoolyard bully the other day got you in trouble with the principal, Tyson. I had to pick you up from school early because of that instance of behaviour," Markus' gaze made his twin sons gulp audibly.

"But I did it to stop him from beating up Samuel Horsby," Tyson protested, "He's mute and for that reason the boy was bullied."

"Your actions ended up sending him to hospital with a broken nose and orbital fracture," His voice was tinged with anger and disappointment, "Your recklessness injured a classmate again this year."

Tyson looked somewhat guilty at that insinuation, while his twin found himself recalling his brushes with the principal.

"Do you remember Greg Felnarl?" Tyrion asked.

"Yes, you broke his arm and nose in that fight, Tyrion," Markus answered, "I hoped that this school year would pass by without any troubles, but however your behaviour makes it harder for the whole family."

"DADDA!," Giselle, a small two-year-old girl with sandy brown hair put up in two pigtails, ran up to Markus. She giggled as she played with her stuffed monkey, which she called Anlee.

His wife, Madison, stepped into the saloon, carrying their youngest son, Adam. The infant had been born two weeks ago, and he slept soundly, unaware of all the hubbub in the room.

"I swear that the library is Giselle's favorite place. She virtually begs me to take her there," Madison sighed, "She's a fledging bookworm."

"Yeah, let's not count the number of times she begs us to read to her before bedtime,"

"And she even got lost in the bookstore once," Madison turned to the twins, "Scared the bejeezus out of us."

* * *

"Excuse me while I take his head,"

Vash's eyes widened in shock; the hubristic man pointing the gun at him had eyes for the sixty billion double dollars bounty, and he didn't like it one bit.

"What. The. Fuck?" Ania's rhetorical question was appropriate for the situation the group of four were caught in. Vash hated the fact that the federal authorities had the gall to place the bounty on his head after the destruction of Old July. It wasn't his fault, Million Knives activated Vash's Angel Arm against his own wishes. To make it worse, Old July was a bustling city with roots originating from Polish and Irish settlers who were ferried to No Man's Land from the collapsing Earth, and there were two cathedrals that were still being built there. They were intended to be great works of art, but Knives in his misguided hatred of humans, wiped all the buildings out.

The entire populace of Old July had survived in part to Vash's efforts to shield them from the worst parts of Knives' machinations. He had warned the people to evacuate before the battle between the brothers took place, and they had all obeyed. However, the Federal Bounty hunter agency got word through some unknown means and he was stuck with this number for the last twenty years.

The man was about to pull the trigger, but Vash acted quickly and kicked it out of his adversary's hand, catching it in mid-air. He threw it far away from the scene, before he followed it up with a punch aimed at knocking the man out. The man seemed to have anticipated the move, as he raised a hand to block it. Vash then took another strategy; he tripped the man as he was about to run to the spot where his gun laid. It had the desired effect of knocking him out.

"Let's skedaddle," the red-clad gunslinger said. There were murmurs of agreements from the other three.

The group tranversed Felnarl through alleyways and across rooftops before they came across an abandoned manor. The sign on the gate had several missing letters, and the locks on it had rusted to the point that a single shot from Ania's gun had easily broke the chains. There was evidence of fire on the exterior, and the front doors seemed to have rotten away.

The group entered the house. The foyer was wallpapered in peeling mauve damask and the light fixtures were broken beyond repair. The hunter green carpeting that covered the grand staircase had burn marks scattered across it. An overturned couch laid in one corner; it had several springs sticking out of it damaged exterior.

"Whatever happened in this house must've been quite the tragedy," Meryl's remarks were met with whispers of agreement.

"This place gives me the creeps," Milly shuddered.

Ania didn't share the sentiment. She found places like this to be thrilling, because they held buried secrets waiting to be uncovered. There were times when she was exploring such locales, she had dug up information that she had forwarded to various historical societies.

One such example was the Mignelon ruins in the small town of Surrey, which laid northwest of December. The place was once a grand mansion with luxurious details like a painted ceiling in the grand foyer and crystal chandeliers. However, the owner of the home, Barrett Mignelon was locked in the mansion along with his young family and the house was set afire by unknown parties 70 years ago. Many historians on No Man's Land had debated on the various suspects and their various motives for committing such an act. One historian, James Bennett, had pointed the finger at Daimon McCrage, because it was a well-known fact that Mignelon opposed the man's vision for a grand empire, and Bennett had contended that the parties were assassins under McCrage's command. Most of the other scholars opposed his theory; they cited Mignelon's numerous debts to unsavory underworld figures, like the legendary Old July mob boss Mario "One-eye" Brachato, and John Lucchese, a well-known loan shark who was shot to death in a drive-by shooting two years after the tragedy by Augusta gangs there.

Ania had found a journal in a half-buried safe she discovered in the southwest quadrant of the ruins. When she read it, she found out that Barrett Mignelon had blabbed secrets of the Brachato family to rivals who hoped to wrest power away from them. Mario Brachato had only found out after his consigliere was killed in open daylight while strolling with his family. He ordered a hit on Mignelon, something that the man was fully too aware of, and he fled Old July to his private manor in Surrey. But nonetheless, whoever killed the Mignelon family had associations with Brachato and the journal convinced Ania that it was likely Peter "Fido" Lucchese, a well-known capo and mob enforcer, and John Lucchese's uncle, who had led the forces that burned the manor down with its occupants trapped in there.

Peter Lucchese was abducted by masked gunmen in Augusta 67 years ago during Christmastime; no traces of him were ever found, while Brachato was murdered in a barber shop at around the same time. The police of Old July linked both events, but with little evidence to go on, both cases swiftly went cold.

"Can you guys take a gander at this picture?" Vash gestured to a partially burnt photo on a nearby wall. It depicted a smiling family of seven. What disturbed all four was that the smiles of all of them seemed forced. No doubt that this family had an unhappy home life. The eyes of the two eldest sisters betrayed a deep sadness that reminded Meryl of her aunt, who was last seen walking down a street when she was seventeen years old. Her body was found in a shallow grave north of her hometown ten years ago; she seemed to be the latest in a string of killings of women & girls with similar appearances. They all had black hair, green eyes and an average build. Many of these women were known to be extremely attractive-looking by the local populace, and some of them had been wooed by talent scouts prior to their disappearances and murders.

However, Meryl's aunt had been a problem child since her early teens. She often ran away from her home, despite the sheriff's efforts to return her home. Around the time she disappeared she had tried to hitchhike to the hive of scum and villainy that was Neon City to break it big in the show business there, over her parents' objection to her choice of career. It was only after Meryl found her aunt's diary in the attic after her grandparent's deaths that she finally found out that the girl was sexually abused by her uncle, and by extension, Meryl's great-uncle. It had begun when she was twelve.

"That picture creeps the hell out of me," Milly interjected.

"Not to mention it wouldn't be out of place in a ghost story," Ania's comment made sense. When the group of four thought about it, they found it likely that this building housed one of Fenlarl's own ghost stories.

* * *

The library of the building was mostly untouched. The shelves were filled with books. When Meryl plucked a few of them out, she quickly discovered that it was records of bookmaking, with various numbers that she postulated to be wagers, and symbols next to them symbolizing a winning or losing one.

"It seems that the father in the pic was a bookmaker," Her remark caught the other three's attention.

"I've seen their kind before. Salivating, selfish bastards who prey on their victims' impulse to gamble everything for riches," Ania snarled.

"Not to mention that the Mafia would gladly shoot any defaulters if they ever caught wind," Meryl noted.

"Yeah. The murder of Jackson Wakazowski was a particularly shocking case in December," Ania recalled, "I saw it on the news when I was a teen. The story goes that Wakazowski was a up-and coming actor who had just starred in his first two movies. He was shot in broad daylight while he was filming his third movie. The police investigation turned up some very unsavoury shit about him. According to the story the news said, Wakazowski owed the Mafia five hundred thousand double dollars for a wager he lost. He refused to cough up the money and it ended up being the reason for his shocking murder. To made it worse all of it was caught on camera. The people who committed that act was sentenced to life in prison after they were nabbed."

"There's also Ernest McDonnell's murder last year in Augusta. The police's still investigating it," Vash added. "The short gist of the police statement was that he was killed at the behest of a loan shark. He was a famous radio personality there."

"I found this journal," Milly held up a gray book, "According to what was written in there, the author was the owner of this house. His name was Pablo Huaraz and he had a somewhat nasty life, despite his ill-gotten wealth. His eldest brother was killed by his abusive father, and he got in a bad crowd to get away. His second daughter was identified as a Reader and was taken to the Academy at an early age. She died at age twelve of an undisclosed illness there. His eldest son was personally murdered by Mario Brachato, and after his death, his second son apparently set fire to this mansion."

"What's this Reader mumbo-jumbo?" Meryl and Ania's question was quickly answered by Vash.

"Telepathy, apparently. There are some humans that are like that. I've heard rumors about this Academy place. It was a little project during McCrage's era that intended to make super-soldiers out of telepathic children, but it ostensibly backfired. The trainees turned upon their masters after years of experiments and torture," he said.

"I've found some records pertaining to the town. Two of the previous five mayors of Fenlarl Town had gambling debts that put the town in the red, and there are rumours the other three tried to pay it off," Meryl gestured to a teal green book she had opened, "That man who pointed the gun at you? He's the new town mayor."

"Oh, shit!" Vash swore.

* * *

 **The Tower**

It was well-known to the inhabitants of the Last City that the Tower was a major hub of politics and trade; the fact that it was the headquarters of the Guardians certainly helped in that regards. Even though they defended the city, most of the people feared them just for the pure reason that they were in a sense, undead. They mostly had been revived from long-dead corpses from the Collapse.

Yuri Sokolov was no exception, as he had learned the hard way when he visited the city when he was a rookie Guardian. He had been revived in Trostland in one of the abandoned buildings there. During the Collapse he was a promising quantum physicist who was courted by Clovis Bray to spearhead one of their more clandestine projects. However, while waiting for his train to the Cosmodrome, he had been among these killed in a large-scale massacre perpetuated by Fallen from the House of Devils.

His ghost, Anatoly, had been a constant companion through his adventures to Mars and Venus, as he worked to recover secrets lost during the collapse. But the male Ghost was frustrated by his swearing and his tendency to quaff alcohol by the bottle when off duty, and other people had expressed concern over his drinking habits, including Ikora Rey.

Ikora had directed half of the Warlocks, including him, on the new taskforce to research any information on known binary star systems, while others were to seek out information on non-Hive interdimensional beings.

Yuri was deep in his research, consulting various astronomy books and scribbling notes in both Russian and English in a journal. He was about to consult another book he had took off the bookshelves of the Tower's libraries when he was rudely interrupted by his least favorite person.

"There! YouhasnoideahowmuchI'mbeenlookingforyou!" Keisha Murphy, a Hunter of African-American descent skipped into his labatory. She was one of the more disruptive hunters and had been chewed out by Zavala on more than one occasion. She also had a crush on Yuri, and it was something that embarrassed him to some degree. Her attempts to attract his attention had been ignored, even though she used to be his teammate before she was transferred to other teams. Even though she was a wicked Nightstalker, she tended to fiddle with things she shouldn't, much like the Hunter Vanguard Cayde-6. There had been memorable stories in the Tower of both getting in deep trouble and having to be rescued by their fireteams.

" _Yoptel-mopsel_!" Yuri cursed, "Leave me alone, I have work to do!"

Keisha would have glomped him there, if it wasn't for Tamah Fiso restraining her by the cloak. It was the Titan who had suggested to Zavala that Keisha be kept off the list of candidates for taskforces, and the Vanguard and Speaker had agreed unanimously, due to her behavioural tendencies.

"Let's go somewhere," Tamah snorted, as she kept a tight grip on Keisha's cloak.

"But I wanna play with Yuri-Yuri!" she protested.

"Yuri is correct, He is working on some things," Tamah snapped back, irritated by Keisha's obsession with the Voidwalker.

"Thanks, Tamah. Keisha is a _balvan_ , and I'd rather have her back on Earth than going off to Traveler-knows-where and fiddling with stuff she shouldn't," Yuri sighed.

"But-,"Keisha protested again.

" _Ti Durak_!" Yuri snarled, "This conversation is over."

He watched as a furious Tamah Fiso dragged the hunter out of his laboratory.

"By the Traveler, I can't believe Nyaso chose her," Anatoly was obviously referring to Keisha's ghost, "He has his hands full with her."

"Yes, I recall the time Cayde-6 juggled grenades in the Tower last year. What a _ti durak_ he was. When Zavala found out, he was beyond pissed."

"And the time Keisha tried to make a Fallen Captain fight a Hive captain?"

"Yeah, the Vanguard banned her from doing that,"

"What about the time when Keisha found that journal with spacefighter call signs? The one that turned out to be from Zavala's squadron from his previous life?" Anatoly asked.

" _Da_. If I recall correctly, his original callsign was DASH, short for Dumbass Shit. He earned it because during spacefighter training he vomited on his commanding officer's boots in front of his assigned squadron," Yuri let out a chuckle. It was one of the most hilarious events in the Tower, and both old and new Guardians had needled Zavala about that story endlessly for months after the discovery of that detail.

"Shaxx and Cayde didn't let Zavala live it down. He was utterly embarrassed that he received such a designation back then," Anatoly raised his top node in agreement.

"One of his squadmates had the designation SLAG. Can you guess what it means?"

"Debris?"

"It means Screams Like A Girl," Yuri's answer amazed and confused Anatoly.

"I still don't understand spacefighter squadrons' tendencies to give their members embarrassing callsigns, but at least it made for some good stories."

* * *

 **Fenlarl Town**

The only bedroom left in the ruins was wallpapered in a red and gray pinstripe pattern, while the bay window on the west-facing wall offered a good vantage of the double sunset. Meryl sat on one of the intact chairs, while Milly took the other one. Ania was splayed out on one of the twin beds, while Vash leaned against the door.

"Remember when the Rolling Stones was the epitome of cool?" Milly asked. Vash and Ania shrugged, while Meryl instantly became starry-eyed.

"Yes. I listened to them when I was a teen. They had some snazzy fashion sense. Bright pink leather jackets, ripped jeans and stompy boots, oh my! All the cool kids in my high school were imitating them. Their music was an awesome mix of jazz and metal rock. And the lyrics! So catchy you would be singing it repeatedly!" Meryl gushed.

"The ripped jeans and stompy boots sounds like something I would have wore in high school if it wasn't for that stupid school uniform code," Ania retorted.

"You WHAT?!," both women exclaimed.

"Yes. I was forced to wear uniforms when I was in high school. The school consulted with the community on this project in the months leading up to the start of ninth grade, and my parents were in support of such a concept. But all the kids, including me were firmly opposed to the idea, as we were all used to the idea of clothing defining our identities. The popular girls were used to wearing expensive brand-name clothing, while the delinquents had leather and gang symbols. I had just joined the punk subculture back then.

However, the policy went in effect despite the opposition of all students. The admins decided it was needed to control the out of control delinquency rate in my district. Many teens were joining gangs, and others were getting jacked off on heroin, cocaine and even fentanyl. The final straw for them was when the star basketball player overdosed on the last, he died days before school were officially in session.

I defied the rules, but my dad grounded me for two weeks for that audacious act. I found out later that many of my friends experienced the same consequences after they had done the same," Ania's explanation made sense.

"What did the school uniforms look like?" Vash queried as he twirled his gun in boredom.

The picture Ania took out showed her younger self in a taupe jumper dress with a maroon polo shirt and black tights. Her golden headband was still there.

"The school allowed me to wear the headband, as they judged it to be unobtrusive enough not to disrupt the learning experience," she answered. "Other girls couldn't wear their favored accessories, as they were either brightly colored, or very elaborate."

"Like what?"

"My friend Rylie Winder wasn't allowed to wear her red silk flower hairpins. And another girl was forced to forgo her bell hair ties," she added.

"I've had the same experience. The schools I was sent to have a strict uniform policy," Milly said, "I thought all schools were the same when I was growing up. Still do."

The sky had turned dark, it was nearly time to hit the sack.

"Good night," Meryl yawned as she moved toward the other bed. There were nods of affirmation as the group fell asleep.

* * *

"Why the fuck are we looking for Vash the Stampede, Myers?" A skinny man with a beaked nose asked his thickset partner.

"The boss wanted the money, you moron," Myers cuffed him on the head, "Perkins, you are so thick-headed, a hammer could hit you on the head and you would still live."

"Not to mention that Blue Dancer bitch finally got rid of Wilkes. He was a cheating ass-kisser," Perkins snapped back. He had once been employed by Wawkin's Mechanics and Parts, a well-known fixture in Augusta that had closed due to Harry Wilkes' thievery eleven years ago.

"And Pablo Lucchese is sandworm fodder right now. Serves him right for meddling in affairs he doesn't understand," Myers spat out, "Gotti had the fucking hit sanctioned by the Commission three months ago."

The Mafia Commission of Augusta was a ruling committee that meditated all disputes between the four Mafia families ruling the city's underbelly and to oversee all illicit activities. It had been established by one Callisto Modano in order to replace the _capo di tutti capi_ title after two decades of infighting ending with the last one, Vincent Maranzano being removed in a coup after a brief, but bloody reign. The four ruling families were the Brachato, Massani, Corleone and Bonanno clans. Many other minor families had tried to muscle their way into the Commission, although they were quickly dealt with quickly, either in an all-out gang war or in clandestine manners.

"I recall him. He was always looking for a way to gain power, be it through force or deceit," Perkins noted.

"Mario Decosta's consiglere tried to backstab him with the intent of taking over the Massani family's assets last year, ostensibly,"

"What happened next?

"He was fed alive to the sand worms a few days after he was kidnapped this month. Fanconi bragged about it in Schroeder's Saloon a few weeks ago,"

"I've heard that Vittori Brachato is consolidating his power in Octovern and Neon city," Perkins pointed out, "Some of the smaller gang are trying to hit back at Brachato."

"They'll be dead by the end of the year, mark my words."

"Stop yammering and focus on looking for the Humanoid Typhoon, you doddering fools!" The town mayor roared at the two henchmen he had just received from April the last month.

"Yes, Pisano" they said as they saluted the short man like the mafiosi associates they were.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Winding Deserts**

 **Chapter 5**

Titus Pisano was an angry man now. He had tried to corner the Humanoid Typhoon, but the red-clad fugitive had managed to get the upper hand on him. He had fled with his small group, and that Blue Dancer…

There were rumours that the Blue Dancer was related to the Storm Whisperer. The individual in question was a renowned Plant researcher, but what earned this man his title was the fact that he could, in a sense, communicate with the storms raging above December. However, what stood out in Pisano's mind of the photos of this individual was his blue skin tone. He could see the similarity between the Blue Dancer and this man. It wasn't such a far-fetched concept to link them by blood. And the glowing eyes only cemented the connections. He couldn't recall the name, was it Dr. Cedrin Van or Cegrim Von?

Pisano shook his head to get rid of the thoughts, he could care less about the Storm Whisperer. Vash the Stampede was his priority. Fenlarl Town was in heavy debt, and he believed that the bounty the Federal Bounty Hunter Agency placed on Vash the Stampede's head was the solution to the town's woes. If only the men his uncle Giovanni sent were competent; they were too busy yammering about Mafia matters to be of much use.

The woes had begun with Frantziska Gebara over seventy-five years ago. He had commissioned several plans for public works for Fenlarl, but his gambling addiction got the better of the man. He used the money the town had to feed it. The next mayor, Fallyn Meiser, continued to rack up debt to Pablo Huaraz on sagarromi-racing and sport matches, but however after an investigation by the local sheriff she was booted from office for political corruption. Meiser was murdered ten years later in April by mob enforcers there, and no one cared much for the bitch.

Gebara was arrested for financial crimes shortly after he left office. It had come as no surprise to the inhabitants of the town at the time. One group had planned to hire mercenaries to eliminate the man, but they were thwarted by a sudden raid on their place by anti-Mafia law enforcement. As a result 26 people were sent to the only prison on No Man's Land. The former mayor had followed them there shortly after his trial was complete.

Pisano turned his thoughts to his upcoming initiation in the Brachato family. A few weeks ago, he had successfully got rid of one of the crime family's most annoying thorns in the side, a turncoat who had decimated nearly half of the rackets operating in the town with his loose tongue. That man had been killed and his remains fed to pigs on a farm owned by one of the Mafia associates operating in Fenlarl Town. Vittori Brachato had rewarded him richly by bribing officials in the town to allow his victory over Landon Meiser during the election, and he had the Commission sanction a hit on the man after the event, to keep him from revealing the truth of the rigged election.

"Seems like the Humanoid Typhoon is one slippery fool," One of his henchmen muttered.

"Indeed, Myers," He nodded.

Myers was the son of his uncle and one of his three mistresses. He had been conceived while on an excursion to Valdoor. It was an open secret in the Pisano family that Giovanni openly despised his wife, which he had been forced to wed at 31. If it wasn't for the Commission's interference, he would have hired someone to kill the woman before the wedding day. Even now, Pisano's uncle absolutely refused to bed her, and beat her at every opportunity. There were never any heirs, and even now his grandparents regretted wedding Giovanni to her.

Perkins Costa was the illegitimate son of an underboss. He was the direct result of an extremely violent rape of one of the working girls of Neon City. The woman had been badly traumatized and the fact that his father just forced her to carry the child to term as he wanted an heir that would carry on his legacy rubbed salt in the wound. But she spat upon this man's honor by naming him Perkins instead of a good Italian name, like Luigi or Apagito. Vittori Brachato had rejected him as an heir of this underboss, instead favouring other candidates.

* * *

Meryl Stryfe paged through the pink journal she had found under one of the beds. The Huaraz family was the very image of a dysfunctional family, with the parents each favoring one child over the others. For Pablo Huaraz, it was Emily Ann, the younger daughter; from the photo of the entire family Vash had found, she was strikingly attractive with platinum blonde hair and emerald green eyes. The girl was a proficient ballet dancer, and from what was written by the author of the book, she had been accepted to the prestigious Harvard School of Ballet in Octovern. Her father had sent the girl on a steamship there, but she never arrived there, and her father had put up missing posters in the city in the hope that she would be found. His hopes were dashed when she was found at the Academy; she was on the deathbed at that time.

The mother, Sienna had favored Vladimir, the eldest son, as he looked very much like her. He was the golden child in her eyes and he never received any punishment. But however, the other two unfavorites resented their parents. The younger brother, Perkins Huaraz, plotted the murders of their parents, but others beat him to the race when a pair of mercenaries shot Pablo Huaraz at Schroeder's Saloon at the behest of one of his debtors. Two years before that event, Vladimir Huaraz had become an hated enemy of Mario Brachato, as he had blabbed information about an important Mafia meeting to rival criminal organizations with the intent to capitalize on the chaos such a turf war would cause. This was part of his long-term plans to make his newly established gang a permanent fixture of the Augusta underbelly. It had apparently failed as he was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in the city of April while on business there.

Estrella Huaraz, the eldest daughter, had virtually disowned her family after her father's death, deciding to marry into the Fenlarl clan. She became a well-respected matriarch in the town, donating much of her inheritance to charity and raising six children, all of them which became prominent citizens of the town. Estrella Huaraz had passed away at the ripe old age of 82, after a long and happy life.

"This reminded me of the Dahls. They were a local family who lived in the apartment building I grew up in. The mother smothered her children and the father was too busy drinking his problem away to notice how out of control his children were," she said.

"Really?" All three of her companion asked quizzically.

"Yes. The eldest brother became a narcissist know-it-all who could care less for the women he harmed. Got sent to prison after he raped a young teen who was working for him. His middle sister was a fame-seeker. She become so desperate for fame to the point she wound up a porn star. And the youngest daughter ran away with a perverted man who believe he was the messiah of a new religion. She never returned home."

"Insane shit," Ania commented, "Makes my friend Rylie's family look normal by comparison."

"I'm sure it's time to move on," Vash pointed out.

There were murmurs of agreements, as the group moved out of the ruined mansion. The streets around it were run-down, and there were a few skeletons laying around in the alleyways. The group of four assumed they were of murder victims. The building around it seemed to be abandoned, as evidenced by the weathered curtains and dust-caked windows. Some had been broken. Large, colourful graffiti tags decorated the ecru adobe walls.

 _Chav. Jingles. K-Abry. Twitchz. JaxBody._ Vash read each one out loud. Chav's tag was purple & yellow and drawn in a style resembling bubbles on a gray and blue background. K-Abry's were angular and painted in a mixture of metallic bronze and scarlet; it was almost cube-like. Twitchz and Jingles were amalgamations of clashing colors that hurt the eyes, and even Ania had the guts to pan these two artists' idea to set two colors that didn't go together well. But the one they had liked the best was JaxBody's. The graffiti was painted in gray, orange, navy blue and red, and the flowing lines this artist used elevated the doodle to another level.

The small square that the street the group were on led to had cracked pavement. The fountain had stagnant water and Meryl was sure she wouldn't even dare drink from it. There were six benches around the square and they had seen various degree of trashing. Two statues stood on opposite sides of the square. One was carved from the local marble here and took the form of a woman's torso and legs. It was a stylized form, something that Meryl didn't care for. The other took the form of a bronze fu-lion, and it was grasping a gazing orb under it paw.

"Looks like this sector of Fenlarl was once reserved for the wealthy," Ania's observation made sense, as around the squares there were shops around it. All of them had been abandoned years ago.

Milly investigated one of the shop windows and gestured them over to it.

"The display here looks like it once held an expensive bottle of liquor," she said. It was apparent from the signage in the smashed windows.

 _Cumberbatch's Fine Port, Sixty years Vintage: Price: $$300,000_. The faded photo depicted a port bottle encrusted with rhinestone crystals in a filigree pattern. The advertisement had claimed that there were only 118 bottles made and that it was a limited edition run.

"In today's terms that bottle would be worth roughly two billion double dollars," Meryl's expertise in accounting and appraising had shown itself.

"Traveler…REALLY!?" Ania's jaw had dropped comically. Vash also had the same exact reaction, while his eyes were as big as dinner plates.

"Yes, it's true. There was a news article last month that detailed the auction of the last remaining three bottles,"

* * *

Perkins and Myers moved through the northwest quadrant of Fenlarl. It once was the wealthiest sector of the small town, but riots over 64 years ago had changed the status quo. The few owners of the grand mansions had fled else where, taking their families and whatever they could carry with them, and the buildings soon fell into disrepair. Some of them became lairs for illicit operations, like dial-a-dope and gambling dens years later. And other crumbled from years of disuse, never to be rebuilt.

"Why did we get stuck with motherfucking Pisano of all the potential new members?" Perkin swore, "He's a dicktard pure and simple."

"It was my dumb father's idea," Myers spat out.

"I bet Pisano wouldn't be able to survive the scrutiny of the falcones," Perkins scoffed. Myers shuddered; from what he could recall, the falcones were elite anti-Mafia investigators from the city of Augusta. They had a great deal of experience with breaking up deeply entrenched rackets that had ran for years, often leaving a great deal of destruction behind in their operations. The last time they had came to Fenlarl Town was fifteen years ago. A newly built mansion on the east side had been blown up after the resident living in it, a capo, was arrested.

"Jesus Christ, they are fucking scary," he said.

"Remember Jack Lombardi? He tried to outwit them for years. It was one hell of a hunt that took fifteen years, six towns, four cities and thirty of these assholes," Perkins elaborated, "I don't know what the fuck happened, but Lombardi was caught and sent to prison for life."

"Last week, I heard the _falcones_ are making their move on Giovanni Bonanno in Macca City. He found out because someone on the street yammered to him about it," Myers added, "I'm not surprised that they got wind of Bonnano's plan to extort Pia Toller, a up and coming fashion designer."

"He was too bombastic for his own good," Perkin snorted, "His mansion's modelled after one that was shown in a movie, and he has a collection of expensive wines, mostly gotten by strong-arming the winning bidders."

A sudden flash of red caught Myers' attention. He drew his pistol, pointed it in the direction he first saw, and begun firing. There was no reply from whoever he shot, so he followed the flash he saw toward a seedy alley. The dumpster there seemed to have been filled to the brim recently, and a trashcan held the remains of a dog decapitated long ago. The still intact clotheslines held ripped clothing that had been abandoned years ago.

The pair looked in the dumpster. Still nothing, they turned and left the alley.

Meanwhile Vash, Milly, Ania and Meryl slowly got out of the dumpster they had just hid in.

"That was disgusting, Vash," a visibly annoyed Meryl spat out, as she crossed her arms across her chest.

"But it was our only option," the red-clad gunslinger replied in embarrassment.

"I'm not that surprised. I hear that Jack Lombardi once did the exact same thing during his tenure as a fugitive from the falcones," Ania added.

"And let's not mention the skeletons back there," Meryl snorted, "This darned spot in town is a serial killer's paradise,"

"This is fun," Milly bounced up and down, "it's just like the—"

A harisen fan plucked from seemly nowhere bonked her in the head. Meryl was even more irate, as she brandished it again.

"THIS ISN'T A JOKE!" She shouted at Milly.

Vash and Ania sweatdropped as they watched the unfolding scene. They had seen much of Milly's ditziness in action, as she often thought the world was all sunshine and roses, despite the evidence to the contrary. And not to note the times she often bumped into objects when she spaced out.

"Let's move on,"

The group stepped out into the street. A tumbleweed rolled past them, while the dry, hollow wind made the noise from it even louder. Milly looked around, while Vash and Ania drew their guns.

"We're not taking chances," Ania said when Milly asked why the two acted like that, "Especially with that dick of a mayor pursuing Vash's head."

The group walked up the street, looking around at the abandoned buildings lining both sides. There were abandoned bars, clothing stores, and even an adult store. Ania did a double take when she spotted this one, with its XXX signs and images of scantily clad women and men. Vash laughed out loud at her expression. She was blushing a very bright violet when she spotted the offending imagery and Meryl and Milly had a similar reaction, but their faces were beet red.

"The three of you must've have been sheltered too well," he said between laughs.

A vein on Meryl's head popped, and she angrily cuffed him, hard. Ania's hand met her face, this was getting ridiculous. Milly shrugged, puzzled at the scene unfolding in front of her.

The posters had made Ania recall the comphrensive sex education that her father had put her through, as he had felt that this area was being neglected by the school administration in favour of a religious-based approach. It came as no surprise to her family that this approach had failed to reduce teen pregnancy rates in the district they lived in. It had covered every base, including STIs, pregnancy, homosexuality, relationships and even domestic violence. The last one had been added after one of the school custodians had gunned down his ex-girlfriend and her entire family in retaliation for her leaving her for another man. The event had occurred at midnight, and when the town woke the event was all over the news. Ania had blushed through much of the lessons her father had gave her. It was rather awkward for her, and even now Vash's insensitive comment had brought back embarrassing memories.

* * *

 **The Tower**

Hachiyama Taeko and Zeon-4 tossed the hacky sack ball that Zeon kept in one of his utility pockets on his vest back and forth. He was an exo with a chassis the color of the sky, and a red horn. His optics were white, and the light emanating from his mouth was amber. A matching red stripe ran down the left side of his face. He was a Bladedancer, although he was known to sub Nightstalker at times.

The two were totally bored, as Taeko had came home from a long day of research into non-Hive interdimensional beings empty-handed. She looked like most Japanese did, with raven hair that she had pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She had then secured the hanging end to the back of her head with purple ribbons she had bought at the City markets when she had first arrived after her initial revival. The bangs that framed her round face was sparse and did little to conceal her unusually high forehead.

A knock resounded on the door, and the male exo stood up to answer the door.

"Hi, it's good to see you again, Tamah," He laughed, "remember when Keisha pranked Shalom-12?"

"Yes, his reaction was priceless," Tamah gasped through laughs, "Even Cayde got in with the fun."

"You can come in, Sione," Taeko added. The half-Awoken boy following Tamah was clad in his usual attire. It consisted of a lightweight sweater in burnt orange, brown khakis with viridian green stripes running down the sides and simple white sneakers that Tamah had purchased at a discount store in the Last City after the boy had outgrown his old pairs two months ago.

"He's definitely growing like a weed," Zeon pointed out, "The last time I saw him, he was this small," he gestured to his hips.

"I've had to buy new clothing for Sione this month," Tamah sighed, "He quickly outgrew some of the things I've bought him for school. And the other day the principal approached me, and he told me that it might be time to transfer him to the Tower school. He had noticed an early manifestation of Light in the boy during a fight he had with one of his rivals. Luckily, an experienced Titan was there to stop it from going too far."

"Have you introduced him to his father? Baruch Kovj?"

"I haven't seen him even since the day we fucked and conceived him, Zeon," Tamah answered.

"I remember babysitting Sione when he was two-years-old. He loved roughhousing, and it really did hurt when he did that," Taeko's comment made Zeon shudder.

"Yeah, I can still feel the pain from some of his charges," Zeon added, "even at that wee age, he was showing tendencies of being hard-headed, just like mom."

"The only other classmate at his school this hard-headed is Astrid Bellini, and she has a crush on Sione," Tamah noted, "He is thankfully oblivious to that fact."

"I had a funny dream last night," Sione interjected in the conversation.

"What was it about?" Taeko's question made the six-year-old slightly uncomfortable.

"I was playing in a giant desert with twin boys that looked alike, and we made seven sandcastles. Then they broke, save for one. I then saw an Awoken girl racing her childhood friends on that desert. She looked like she was growing up, then I saw her friends disappear. She found herself among people like you, Zeon. I then saw the twin boys and their siblings. Their younger sister was clothed like you, Taeko while the youngest was just like the twins and me."

"That's strange. I thought only Warlocks usually had prescient dreams," Taeko thought out loud.

"I agree, I think it is weird. We'll have to bring it up with the Speaker tomorrow," Tamah agreed.

* * *

Yuri Sokolov was not a happy man. He was constantly being interrupted by Guardians who wanted his assistance with something, be it translations of books they've found in Old Russia, strange specimens they've found while on missions to Humanity's former colonies or just plain scientific explanations of things they've seen there.

It was little wonder he drank so much, as being a Guardian was stressful work. Being a warlock of his calibre meant he had to cope with the constant whispers of the Void. The wry observations of That Which Lies Beneath the Universe didn't help his mood much.

" _Oh, great. Quaffing alcohol again,"_ Its sarcastic whisper echoed in his head, _"I wonder if it helps you forget the question?"_

' _Yopstel-mopsel, I don't have time for your bullshit,'_ Yuri thought back angrily as he quaffed yet another shot of vodka from the City's only distillery. He was about to reach for the bottle to pour another vodka shot, but a dark hand plucked it out of his reach.

"Yuri, even Keisha told me of your propensity for drinking. Hell, even the Speaker and Zavala are concerned that your drinking might make you a liability," Ikora sighed as she used the Void Light in her hands to make the bottle disappear.

' _Pizda!_ ' Yuri's thought went unsaid, as he had quickly learnt that swearing in front of the Vanguard wasn't such a clever idea. He had been rebuked strongly for that act as a newborn, and one of his teammates had planned on installing a censor mod much like the one on Hachiyama's hood in case it happened again.

"Why the hell should I give a damn?" Yuri's question irritated the warlock Vanguard.

"We're all concerned that when you're drunk, you might do something reckless that might cost innocent lives," Her rebuke further annoyed Yuri. He blew a raspberry, before he sighed.

"Alright, I'll cut down on the drinking," he said in an exasperated tone.

"How is the progress on your research?" Ikora's question caught the younger Warlock off-guard.

"It has been slow, as there are many binary star systems we've had to keep track of," Yuri replied, "Although we were able to narrow the candidates down from 300 to a tidy list of over 35 according to scans and possible transmissions, there are still unknown factors that need to be determined."

"I agree, Yuri," Ikora agreed, "So far we have determined that the transmissions likely originated from the Triangulum cluster."

"Not to mention the fact that a few of the stars there are vampiric," the male Warlock pointed out.

"And there was some rudimentary information from the Books of Sorrows that suggested that the Taishibethi originated from a nearby cluster," Ikora's observations made sense.

* * *

 **Fenlarl Town**

"Careful, Ania and Vash," Meryl whispered to the gunslingers at the front of the group, "You'll never know who you'll run into."

Milly murmured in agreement. The group of four was strolling through the central marketplace after they had spent a few hours hiding out in the abandoned sector of Felnarl Town.

Their stomachs suddenly gave out a loud rumble, and it was in this moment that they realized that they hadn't eaten for the last twelve hours.

"Guess it's time to eat," Ania pulled out her gray wallet. It had the image of an old fictional creature from a pre-Collapse game called a Umbreon on it. It looked doglike, with a black body ringed with yellow and red-scleraed eyes.

"Ohhh, a Pokémon fan?" Meryl asked, "Never knew you were into that kind of stuff."

"Yes, I grew up with it. Sometime during my time in elementary school someone had the idea to revive the franchise after centuries of inactivity," Ania answered.

Milly took out a wallet resembling a white cat with a red bow. Vash, Meryl, and Ania sweatdropped at the juxtaposition of a grown woman working for the Bernadelli Insurance Society and her childish choice of a money stasher. The fact that she had a Hello Kitty wallet only further cemented her ditziness.

"I picked it because I thought it was cute," She protested. A certain black cat rubbed her head against Milly's legs, clearly enjoying her company. The people around her stared at Milly, as they had never seen a grown woman with this kind of themed wallet. They had only seen it being carried by little and preteen girls.

"Let's go get some grub, my friends," Vash spoke with a flourish as comical as his character, before he reached for his red wallet hidden within his duster.

"There's a good one," Meryl gestured to one stand four feet away from the group. The bicycle cart had signage that read Fat Frank's Hot Dogs and Hamburgers. The proprietor of the stand was an extremely reedy man with a scarlet afro. His beady blue eyes held much mirth, and he cheerfully flipped hamburgers and hot dogs before he quickly served them to customers surrounding it.

Ania took a gander at the menu. It listed several types of hot dogs and smokies, including cheddar, garlic, habanero, and even a bhut jolokia variant. There was also bratwurst sausage, which were extremely popular; the signage said that they were sold out. There was also a variety of patties, from the familiar beef, as well as spiced pork, ham, and even salmon.

She was about to make an order, but gunshots rang out behind the group.

"There he is!"

Two men moved toward Vash, shooting anyone who dared stand in their way. Ania swiftly drew her and begun firing back, dodging occasionally. She had noticed a long time ago that every time she dodged, her aim became much more accurate although she thought it was insignificant. There were far better marksmen than her like the legendary performer Abie Oakley, who thrilled audiences with her trick shots.

Vash took out his gun; aiming for the hanging lantern behind the duo, he fired. The shot missed, and hit a widow, causing it to shatter.

"Fuck!" he cursed. One of the duo, a skinny man, fired his assault rifle. Ania tumbled to one side, as the bullets from the gun narrowly missed her. She shot again; the bullets missed, hitting the walls of a nearby hotel. Vash aimed for the legs with his Colt .40, but there was another miss. It was in that moment that Ania took out a smoke grenade. She threw it down, and the group took the opportunity to flee.

Ania and Vash leaped across rooftops with skill they were accustomed to, while Meryl and Milly tranversed the alleyways.

"Stupid jackasses, always going for the money on my head," Vash spat out in annoyance.

"If there's always a constant, it's human greed," Meryl chimed in.

"Agreed. Harry Wilkes was one greedy ass, and there's going to be another one who'll fill his spot. It's inevitable," Ania's observation made sense.

"Who taught you that?" Milly's query surprised the blue-skinned gunslinger.

"It was Autavio Demario. He's a fellow bounty hunter and my mentor."

"Speaking of human greed, I recall one time when I was a teen one of the CEOs at the company I was working at the time falsified records. He was trying to hide the fact that the company owed people money. But the public found out anyways," Meryl's tale had just begun, when the group was interrupted mid-conversation by a salvo of bullets. The insurance agents ducked, while both gunslingers swiftly dodged.

"What happened next?" Vash spotted the man from yesterday; he was still clad in the same suit and carried the same gun that was pointed at him. He was flanked by the two who had tried to chase Vash down earlier.

"The company was embroiled in a scandal unlike any other. News outlets picked up on the developing story pretty quickly. The authorities overlooking the safeguarding of financial securities and economic development caught on fast, and they issued an arrest warrant for this individual. He went on the run, but it was ended as quickly as it had begun," She explained as Vash and Ania responded to another salvo of gunfire with their guns.

"I remember the Traveler-damned story. My dad was pretty pissed about that one. He said that the previous CEO promised to fund his project, but then the man was kicked out by the board of directors who wanted to capitalize on the latest resource boom. The money that was earmarked for this project disappeared mysteriously soon after this guy you told me about took power. After his arrest, it turned out that he took the money that was supposed to go to my dad and used it to fund his over-the-top lifestyle." Ania dodged while she fired at the trio.

"What did he do after he found out about it?" Milly asked.

"He went to a lawyer and begun the process of going through with a lawsuit against this person. However, the authorities ordered the jackass to cough up the money he stolen. He disobeyed the orders, and it was decided that everything he owned would be seized and auctioned off. Dad received a paltry sum of one thousand double dollars, as most of the money went to the fines the asshole owed," she retorted, as she leapt from one rooftop to another. Vash followed suit, leading the trio chasing them down another street.

"Fuck!" A thrown explosive grenade demolished the building the quartet was around. Ania and Vash were smart enough to jump off the building before it exploded, while Milly and Meryl moved as far away from the explosive as fast as possible.

"Well, well, if it isn't Vash the Stampede," the smirk on the suited man was just as slimy as his entire character. Ania desperately wished she could wipe the expression off his face.

"By the way, the name's Titus Pisano," his voice sounded like a snake oil salesman.

"Why the hell would you want my head," Vash snarled, as he gripped his Colt .40 tighter.

"And how it has to do with the debts Fenlarl currently have?" Meryl's question was not unexpected. She had already figured out Pisano's motivation.

"Yes. Now please surrender yourself and we'll work out a deal or these guys'll take you by force. You pick which one," Pisano gestured to his henchmen.

"Go to hell!" Ania spat out in defiance. Vash silently agreed with the female gunslinger's sentiment, as his bounty was wrongfully placed on his head without any consideration for his side of the story of the destruction of Old July.

He mentally formulated a plan to take down Pisano and his buddies. The street the group was on was cul-de-sac; there was two lampposts behind Pisano and his goons. The plan hinged on knocking both down them to knock them out of the game. He had calculated that if he timed his shots correctly, they would fall on the henchman, and break their backs. This would give Vash enough time to subdue Pisano.

He moved swiftly, aiming two shots at these lampposts, but it was in that moment that his plan failed spectacularly. It didn't have the intended effect; instead it caused the gas lines to burst to much destructive effect. Much of the buildings around him burst in flames. Meryl and Milly were flabbergasted, they now understood why Vash was the Humanoid Typhoon.

Ania fired at the skinny one. Her bullet hit his thigh. He dropped in pain, screaming hysterically all the while. She darted through the hail of bullets that Pisano and his remaining goon peppered upon the group. Vash begun with a running leap and jumped above the two. With two precise shots he was able to disable the other one by shooting him in the calves after he had landed behind them. Ania followed up with a smoke grenade that obscured her visibility. She wove through the bullets fired blindly, taking out a pair of throwing knives. Throwing them, they stuck their intended targets, severing the spinal cords of both men.

"Thanks for the help in the apprehension of a well-known member of the Brachato family, Vash the Stampede and Ania Solezulam," a smooth but friendly voice rang out behind the quartet. Ania and Vash turned toward the source; a tall and skinny man in a brown duster approached them. His face was scarred and his eyes were hard and cold.

"I am Giovanni Searle, of the Falcone Third Division. I and my team were assigned the task of investigating and apprehending Titus Pisano for his role in the murder of Dion Frangelico, an Augusta-sanctioned informant," he said as he flashed his badge. It was in the shape of a stylized falcon, with the number 3341.

Ania's glowing eyes widened, she was surprised that the falcones were here.

"How did you know that Pisano was after Vash?"

"When we saw the associate begun firing at him, that was when we decide that the best strategy was that he would make an excellent distraction while we moved in for the capture. However, you were able to disable them to the point that they won't be going anywhere," he said.

* * *

Titus Pisano swore profusely as he found himself in hospital; he was paralyzed from the neck down. He instantly recognized the man as a member of the falcones; a certain shade of brown was standard color for the group, as well as a certain style of cut. The trimming on the cuffs was viridian green, and indicated seniority, with one stripe denoting a recruit, while three an experienced veteran.

He knew it was going to be a long interrogation, and even then, he wouldn't dare give up his secrets so easily. That train of thought was quickly dissuaded when he saw a young woman in a modest white dress stepping into the room. The name tag read Marie Haicht, Falcone Reader. Readers like her were never good news, since it meant that much of the Mafia's secrets would be laid bare for the falcones to examine.

He quickly broke into a shivering, fearful mess as he talked the man's ear off to keep the bitch from poking around in his head.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Winding Deserts**

 **Chapter 6**

 _ **Neon City**_

Many people often said Neon City was No Man's Land's equivalent to the fictional Mos Eisley of the ancient classic Star Wars series. It wasn't hard to see why, as it had become home to the dregs of society on the forsaken world. As far as the teeming masses of humanity could remember ever since the Big Fall, this place had been one of the earliest towns established outside the Seven. It had been established by one Robert MacDonald with the intent to become an industrial town, but after he was removed from power in a violent coup most of the townspeople fled the area. The place quickly filled up with prostitutes, thieves, con men and gun-for-hires.

As it evolved, it quickly attracted more sophisticated criminal operations, including the Mafia itself. However, they held the growing city only briefly before they were ousted by their long-time rival gang, the Scarlet Jester Association. The group were well known for wearing all-red outfits, with clown makeup and jester hats. The longer the tails of their hat, the more seniority in their organization and it was not uncommon for unusually long-lived members to have tails that trailed behind them on the floor at formal gatherings. Another aspect of the Jesters was that for every major kill they earned a black diamond patch to sew on their suits. The most lethal killers of their gang had dozens of patches all over their garb, with a few racking up to a hundred.

Ostensibly, in the last few years the Augusta Mafia had begun to regain some traction in a bloody turf war; the skillful elimination of key leaders in several districts had helped. The first of these successful assassinations was of one Pietro Vladowski. A major cog in the Scarlet Jesters, he managed the sex trafficking operations across two adjoining districts. The man died while he was raping one of the girls he had brought to his private pleasure quarters. The person who sniped him from thirty feet away was never found. The next was of Andrew Wakazowski, who coincidentally shared a family name with the murdered actor Jackson Wakazowski; he was unrelated. The ganger was found face down in an alleyway, dead from a bullet wound. The killings of Amber Sabre and Plinn Robertson soon followed, the women's bodies were found in a dumpster; they had been decapitated.

But it was not until the heads of Sabre and Robertson had been mailed to the headquarters of the Scarlet Jesters that the turf war between the Mafia and Jesters intensified. The body counts of both sides were mounting, with murders nearly 26/7. The rest of the inhabitants of the town gave it no heed, as it was business as usual.

Such was the circumstances that Vincent-11 found himself in. He was an acrobat with Smiley's Circus, and his profession as a mercenary was a side gig he picked up to pay the bills. He was waiting for one of his contacts to send him information on his latest target.

His Ghost, Jack, hovered above him, nodes twisting in thought. It was clad in a gray and orange shell that he had made with the little glimmer he had on him.

"For all we know, we're in the dark," It spoke in a masculine voice.

"To hell with it," the jet-black exo swore. He twirled, flipped and balanced his knives with the skill of one who had used them all his life.

"The place is a hellhole, Vincent," Jack never approved of his Guardian's unsavory side gig, but thankfully he had drawn a firm line in his dealings. The Exo refused to go after innocent people, but scum like the one that openly displayed their allegiances to the criminal underworld were fair game. So far, Vincent had assassinated three Mafia members and two Scarlet Jesters at the behest of business owners who had just set up there with the intent to improve life in Neon City. They had refused to pay the Mafia's pizzo, or outright defied the Jesters. The desperate people then turned to him, and they paid him tidy sums of double dollars to have whoever were going to rip them a new one killed.

A man in a gray pinstriped suit approached the duo. He had a balding head and his nervous blue eyes back and forth. He was somewhat rotund, with a double chin and beaked nose.

"Are you Vincent-11?" He asked, wringing his hands nervously.

The confirmation of his question came in the form of the hovering AI that moved around the Exo's head.

"Yes, he is."

The man took a deep breath, before he began speaking.

"The name's Paddy Boner. I just opened a restaurant in the southside distract, but recently some Jester bastard has been demandin' that I hand over the property I own to them. They claimed that they had their eyes on it for a location for a new clubhouse for a long time. I really don't want to give up the building I saved up all of my earnings to buy," He explained.

"And the name of the Jester you want offed?" Vincent's question caught the man off guard.

"Patrick W. Jones," he replied, "He's a nasty piece of work. He has killed over 40 people during his career as a Jester enforcer. Some of the people were innocent people who dared to speak out against them."

"And the price?"

"I am willing to pay 20,000 double dollars for the deal," Paddy said, "and to grease the wheels, I may throw in another 10,000."

The restaurant owner then took out a suitcase. Opening it, there were double dollar bills in the amount he had specified.

"Accepted. What does the target look like?" The Exo asked.

Paddy took out a photo of the man he was talking about. Vincent took it from Paddy and inspected it. The photo depicted a pale man with a thin face, large lips, and a smug grin. His jester hat was askew, and his beady eyes showed sadism that both men found highly disturbing.

It was well-known through Neon City that Patrick W. Jones had a taste for raping teen girls. He had often demanded that the families of his district send their prettiest daughters to him so that he could take their maidenhead, and in the most violet manner possible. Vincent would see to the end of this pervert and as quickly as possible, to protect any more girls from experiencing any rapes at this bastard's hand.

* * *

 _ **Fourty miles west of Fenlarl Town**_

Alghrabi's Express had been the premier transport route for the April Plateau ever since it took over after its predecessor, Greyhound Civilian Transport, or GCT for short went bankrupt a little over 64 years ago. According to the news articles of the time, GCT's CFO and COO had indulged in some creative accounting to hide crippling debts. When it was uncovered, it caused a scandal that sent shockwaves through the business world; this also led to other companies' dirty laundry being exposed in a series of scathing articles that exposed the lack of transparency that permeated the business world.

This event had been known as the Great Economic Upheaval. It had quickly led to the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law that aimed to make accounting and business practices much more transparent. The act required all large companies to comply with certain regulations that required them to monitor their books for any irregularities and to report them immediately. They were also supposed to have some form of independent oversight and clarified auditing practices. All auditors were required to be certified and registered before they could inspect the records of the companies they were investigating. Any conflict of interests was strictly forbidden, and any auditor caught with such things were expelled.

It also emphasized the responsibility of the CEO and his teams in presenting the completeness of the financial reports of his/her company, and any officials who misinformed or deceived investors were prosecuted harshly.

The Comptroller General was required to conduct studies into the stock markets and report their findings; including any enforcement actions, and any investigations into accountants who aided delinquent companies in concealing their insolvency or illicit actions.

All these regulations came about because of this and other corporate scandals occurring simultaneously. Meryl Stryfe had read about this during her accounting classes at NOVA University, and it was quite educational. It was little wonder that the company that employed her when she was a teen had folded. She had seen red flags everywhere there. The CEO there was obsessed with financial success, and the management had a blasé attitude toward money. There was pressure to capitalize on fleecing people and not on providing services. There was collusion between the top-tier managements and poor internal controls.

She looked around at her three companions. Milly Thompson was chasing floaters in her eyes, while Ania Solezulam twirled and flipped one of her throwing knives. Vash was sleeping, using her shoulder as his pillow. He was splayed out absurdly, one hand on her thighs and another behind his head. That act made Meryl blush a bright scarlet. She found the touch rather awkward, but also strangely arousing; the insurance agent ruthlessly stifled that train of thought. She could see drool on his face. Meryl wondered if he was dreaming of doughnuts.

The bus they were on was barebones; Alghrabi's Express was the cheapest option. Even though the Bernadelli Insurance Society women had good paychecks, they often opted for the discounted option to save money. Milly's paycheck went straight home to support her large family in the small town of Calgary, which was one hundred and seven kilometers south of Macca City. When both Ania and Vash had asked Milly about that, she had replied that she had ten siblings back home. Less to say, their reactions was amusing to watch.

"I've been thinking about what Giovanni Searle said about Titus Pisano," Ania's head turned toward her.

"About his murders?" Meryl asked.

"Yes. He told me that Pisano has been implicated in several other murders in Augusta," The blue skinned woman crossed her arms.

"I'm not that surprised. The Augusta Mafia can be very vicious," she noted.

"I agree. The murder of Luccano Fiore was the very first case assigned to Searle, from what he told me. His body was found buried in a shallow grave in a park in eastern Augusta. Six children from a nearby school found it while they were on a field trip," Ania explained.

"From what've been circulating in the news at that time, Fiore was a mayoral candidate who campaigned on a platform of expelling Mafia-influenced corruption," Meryl nodded as she took out her insurance reports for the town of Fenlarl.

"I'm not surprised that he was assassinated by these fucks. Seems like he pissed off the wrong people," Ania spat out.

"Do that happen to include the Mafia Commission?" The query made sense, as it was a well-known fact in the criminal underworld that the Commission were not to be trifled with.

"Yes. Searle confirmed that this hit on him was sanctioned by them," Ania twirled her knife before she sighed, "From what he told me, Augusta has a low grade in the Venice Corruption Ranking. He told me that it stood at 5.6, compared to December's 75.4."

The Venice Corruption Ranking system had been created by Lucille Venice, a Falcone of high renown to track the influence of the Mafia. It rapidly expanded outside it circles to track the most corrupt politicans, and later to help identify issues of ongoing concern in the cities on No Man's Land.

The lower the grade, the more entrenched the political corruption in a given organization or city. Ania's father had rated the Council of Technological Research at a measly 2.2 percent on the ranking, given the organization's tendencies to accept bribes, the rampant cronyism and lack of accountability there. And to make it worse, the constant backstabbing and lying took it toll on the Council's reputation. It was little wonder he had an expression of disgust when people declared their support for the joke that was the organization.

"Yes, on many occasions one of my three uncles have had to bribe the officials to do their jobs properly there," Meryl's voice was tinged with annoyance and disgust.

"Little wonder much of the falcones' resources are spent investigating Mafia-influenced political corruption. The more I hear about the lengths the assholes goes to keep a tight grasp on Augusta, the more offended I am at them," Ania scoffed.

"And the fact that the mayors there are chosen through rigged elections isn't helping matters. I hear that there's been a widespread campaign spearheaded by one Orin Patterson that aimed to make election interference a class A indictable offence with a sentence of minimum of thirty years of imprisonment. The cause has been taken up by several members of Parliament, but the House of Representatives isn't having any of it," Meryl crossed her arms, "Stupid politics always get in the way of needed stuff."

"No wonder my dad and I have a low opinion of politicians," Ania scoffed, "They're a bunch of faltering sycophants trying to make themselves look good while sweeping issues under the fucking rug."

Meanwhile, a certain black cat dropped from the shelf above them and landed on Vash's head. His eyes sleepily blinked, before he saw it.

"Kuroneko-sama?" he whispered. The cat licked his forehead, and he picked her off his head.

He petted it, while behind him, an old couple was arguing about some trivial matters. Ania and Meryl was absorbed in some discussion about the Mafia and corrupt politicians. Kuroneko-sama leapt from him toward Ania; she was about to speak but let out a small yelp when the cat landed on her shoulder.

Kuroneko-sama began licking at her cheek, and Ania begun giggling.

"Stop, please, it tickles," she said between giggles, as she moved the feline from its spot on her shoulder. She begun petting it on her lap, cooing at it every once in awhile.

* * *

 _ **December**_

The dark storage room in the Boulinger Institute used to be one of the conference rooms during its heyday. It once streamed video interviews involving Dr. Jayne Boulinger and his team to an enthralled December, and the archives kept copies of them as part of their historical records. The conference tables with it microphones and cameras had given way to plastic storage boxes, some of them containing voice recordings of various employees, and yet other contained more sensitive parts that Dr. Cegrim Von and Dr. Samuel Digsby had obtained through both legal and less-than-legal channels. The latter had been from long-shuttered projects by other scientists that had been left to rot because of less-than-desirable outcomes. Scavenging bandits had picked through the ruins and sold the more valuable parts on the black market to fund their expenditures.

The Awoken warlock sighed for the umpteenth time; it took time to sort through the parts once they arrived at their intended destination. There were sticker labels on every box, and each one was arranged by what type of function they served. There were capacitators, regulators, switches, vacuum tubes, and so on.

"The fact that this project of yours is taking so long says much to the short-sighted priorities of these Council cronies," Echo's nodes twirled around her shell, "Not to mention the details I ferreted out about a super soldier project. They had plans to abduct gifted children! The nerve of these asses, deciding to fund military projects to salve their unrestrained egos!"

"I agree, I loathe the idea of sending children to fight a war they don't understand," Cegrim thought back to his daughter. She was lucky to grow up in a place removed as far as possible from the bloody conflict still ongoing in the Sol System. The children back there wasn't so fortunate, many were killed by the forces of Darkness lurking there. Even if Ania had groaned and moaned about trivial matters every day when she was a teen, she was oblivious to that fact.

He loved her dearly, she was the apple of Larymissa and his eyes. Larymissa had envisioned a medium sized family, with three to five children between the two of them. Pregnancy complications had put an end to that dream, and Cegrim had a nagging suspicion that it was Light-based. Although the couple tried their best to give Ania a somewhat normal life, he still had his worries about her.

He could recall one time she had received notification through the mail that she had been invited to a Dance Dance Revolution tournament in Octovern because of her high scores at the only console at Trumbeak's Arcade. Ania had received round-trip sandsteamer tickets alongside it. Cegrim had taken them straight out of her hand, over her loud protestations. The reason was that she had been grounded for disobeying an explicit order from the school principal to show up for detention three days earlier, and this angered Cegrim deeply. He had locked the tickets away in a drawer, and entrusted Echo with the keys to it.

However, at some point, Ania had picked the lock with a bobby pin in the dead of night and took the tickets. She had then snuck out the following night, with full intention to head toward the sandsteamer station. She had assumed that Cegrim wouldn't notice what she intended to do, but the teenage girl had missed one thing: His Warlock senses.

It was a well-known fact that to wield their powers all Warlocks needed to be able to sense the Light embedded in every living organism. Over the years he had mastered this skill in an unorthodox way; as a father, he had used it countless times to locate Ania whenever needed. Her tendency to explore places had been noticed at an immature age, and it to an extent troubled him. Although it also had benefits, too as Cegrim had a few strange samples in his office. Some of them found by Ania during her forays into the outskirts, while others she had spotted in shops while the family was travelling. He could recall them all; A strange crystal that emitted blue light when exposed to the Light, a hovering artifact that vaguely resembled a three-legged crow, an ancient book written in an alien tongue, a piece of alien technology from a long-lost race, and a book full of ciphers that puzzled every scholar that had came across it.

Through this skill Cegrim was able to catch up to her before Ania could reach the ticket office to exchange it for a boarding pass, and she was returned home over her adamant objections. He had to destroy the tickets with a precise application of Arc Light, to keep her from repeating _that_ attempt again. Less to say, Ania had groused all through the rest of her punishment.

"The latest blowout in the Council had Pauline Frida denying Michael Bloor's request for more funding for his little project. Serves him right, the last thing we need is more ax-crazy child soldiers," Samuel snorted.

"Yes, the Academy was a failure. Seem cutting out the amygdala wasn't the best way to go about making agents," Cegrim scoffed, "The trainees went crazy and massacred their masters, before they disappeared, never to be seen."

"Not to mention Radegast's little obsession with transhumanism. The last time one of the Council scientists tried to make functional cyborgs, someone hacked the software in the cybernetics and directed the subjects to rampage through the town of Gustav's Sickle. The entire populace died as a result," Samuel's voice had a hint of outrage.

"I can confirm the story. According to the Council archives this event happened around 38 years ago. There were two scientists with competing interests and they went as far to sabotage each other's work. The investigation by independent agencies had determined that both were equally at fault, for their rivalry had caused destruction and loss of lives. These two were expelled from the world of academia, never to return," Echo nodded, her nodes lowering in a semblance of disappointment.

"And the event caused quite the scandal in the Council of Technological Research. No wonder few trusts these lying assholes nowadays," Samuel walked up to a shelf and picked up a clipboard, "The downward spiral began with Dr. Ejnar Bloor. He was a disingenuous bastard who always promoted people whenever he felt like it and certainly not based on individual merits. His successors continued his practices. These fucktards have only themselves to blame for the state the Council is in now."

"Not to mention that Veloute fool took off with the position Bogart recommended me for," Cegrim snarled, "I smell bribery, and a rather egregious case of one at that."

Samuel inspected the list; it was for one of the five prototypes that the two had been working on for the last five years. It was an exhaustive list of components, and as the duo looked through the boxes, each one was quickly checked off. Except for one; the large ionized glass casing that they had ordered had yet to arrive. It was expected to arrive this morning, and the delay had frustrated the pair immensely.

"We cut through all kinds of bureaucracy in order to get this vital component," Cegrim sighed, "Even then this delay is frustrating. Remember Irangate?"

"Yes, Peter Iran embezzled millions of double dollars from the account of the December Post Office when he was the head of it." Samuel's disgusted voice rang out as he crossed his arms, still holding the clipboard.

"It seems there is more details that the media missed," Echo's eye turned to Samuel, "I went to the trouble of sifting the information on Iran and it turns that there are more than two hundred thousand packages missing during his tenure. When I investigated further it turns out that Iran let his cronies steal as much as they pleased. I've forwarded the information to the December Police."

"Oh, just great. Another scandal in the making, the first thing we need," Cegrim snarked, before he sighed again, "This is why I despise political talk."

* * *

 _ **The Tower**_

The Speaker's chamber was unusually unkempt today, with open books strewed all over his desk, and the rotating Vitalis whistled and whirred above it.

"You there?" Tamah Fiso asked. She led Sione by the hand; the young boy looked around the room. He was fascinated by the things there.

"Come in," The Speaker's voice was remarkably weary. He seemed to have spent hours poring over historical records for any clues on the location of his vision. His black and white robes was somewhat dishevelled by the hours of sitting at the desk between the three of them.

"Something have come to my attention that I think you need to take note," the female titan begun, "This is Sione, my son. He told me about a dream he had recently."

She gestured to the boy to start. He described what he had seen in his dreams; the desert with the two suns, and the twin boys he played with. He told about the twins' siblings and the awoken girl he had seen racing her friends there.

The Speaker mulled over the details of Sione's dream, before he cleared his throat.

"That sounds like the vision the Traveler showed me," the old Warlock put a hand to his chin, "the fact that you had that dream means that you have some part to play in locating these lost Guardians, and awakening them to their true purpose, Sione."

"Does that mean my boy will be coming with me on the ship?" Tamah's query came straight out of left field.

"Most likely, yes. What he has seen in that dream make him a pivotal piece in the grand scheme of things. These Guardians have been dormant for so long that they have forgotten their true purpose," The Speaker's explanation made sense in Tamah's mind.

"As in they are either asleep or they're not aware of what they really are!?" she exclaimed.

"Somewhat. And untrained guardians are a potential danger, Tamah. That's why we aim to get all newborns brought to the City as quickly as possible."

The Speaker could remember many kinderguardians who had settled in the scattered villages all over Earth, and among the Reef's refugee camps. They had to be brought to the Last City, either willingly or by force, as they didn't understand the risks of letting their powers go untutored. There had been many instances of their Light going wild and killing people.

He could remember one particularly memorable incident involving a set of Reefborn twin Titans. Their names were Shuro and Shin Vonj. They both had been found in Rux Lupalis shortly after their revival; they had been tending to the children in a makeshift orphanage there alongside several others.

When fellow Guardians had descended upon the place with the intent to retrieve the two, the duo had tried to brawl their way out of the situation. It didn't work, as the City had developed restraining devices specially designed for such situations. What certainly didn't help the situation was that the duo held a resentful stance toward the Last City, and the roots of such a disposition came from the fact that the Reef Awoken as a collective would rather be left to their own devices. When Shuro and Shin had been pushed into the Vanguard chamber, they had the nerve to cuss the entire Vanguard out. Zavala had been the one to give the duo a stern chewing out for their behaviour.

Even now the duo stayed as far away from the City as possible, something that was relatively unusual for Titans. The Speaker could understand why, being ripped from a newly made home to a location they only knew from stories could stoke the fires of dislike.

* * *

Taeko Hachiyama picked out another book from the Tower. So far, the day had turned out to be another boring and unproductive one. She longed to get out in the field instead of being struck in a dreary library. Cabin fever could get one so far, but even then, the assignment she was given had taken priority.

" _Kuso_ , _kuso_ ," she muttered under her breath. She could hear Yuri Sokolov muttering Russian obscenities alongside her. His drinking problem was well-known among the Tower; The Vanguard and the Speaker had concerns about that behaviour. Taeko had heard rumors that Ikora Rey had threatened to cut off Sokolov's monthly shipments of vodka. She didn't buy that bunk but even then, she admitted that it would have been a great idea.

Yuri Sokolov had a long, nearly gaunt face. His bright blue eyes were sharp and intelligent, and he wore his mahogany brown hair in a Yale cut. His face had rosacea, a tell-tale sign of his alcoholism. He was spindly, and he had wide feet. His Heiro Camo greatcoat were the colors of the flag of his homeland, a sharp contrast from Taeko's dark lavender and fuchsia Extrophy Morph robe.

The books he pored over were astronomy ones. Every once in a while, he muttered some Russian mumbo-jumbo that Taeko couldn't understand, as his native language was vastly different from her.

"I don't understand why Sokolov feels the need to get drunk. There had been sixty-two instances last month where he was caught drinking on the job!" Her ghost, Oda exclaimed with annoyance.

"I recall one time his drunkness embarrassed us. He stripped off his clothing at some party and proceed to dance naked. Shalom-12 had to pick up his clothing. Got charged for indeceny for that act." Taeko face flushed with embarrassment. She was there at the time. By the Traveller, it was humiliating watching Yuri doing that.

"And the time Baruch Kovj and Tamah got drunk and fucked each other?" Oda's node raised in a mimicry of a questioning expression.

"That was a happy accident. Sione is such a sweet kid. He never ceases to cheer us up when we're having a difficult day," She giggled, "I remember when he was three, he drew pics of the Vanguard and gave it to them as a Dawning gift."

"And I remember seeing him drawing on Cayde's face when he was asleep. Got quite the reaction out of him. He was the laughstocking of the Vanguard that day."

"Speaking of humor, did you hear about Zavala's spacefighter callsign?" Taeko's quest made her ghost shake with barely-suppressed laughter.

"According to Shaxx, it was quite the story. Zavala's crossing his fingers that something ever more memorable than that callsign debacle will halt the teasing. He's still ashamed that something like that from his previous life showed up," Oda said once the laughter had cooled down.

"I know, but there's the fun of the spacefighter callsign naming, it always alludes to some eccentricity or something awkward. No wonder anyone who moans about the one they were given always get a callsign that's worse than their original one." Taeko had a valid point; it was a well-known fact that spacefighter squadrons were a tight-knit group and stories like that were fodder for in-group jokes.

The female Warlock plopped the book pile she had been carrying onto a nearby table. The first book, the Harmony of Ahamkara had virtually no reliable information, as there were marked pages that commented critically on errors in the books. That book had been written during the Golden age before the two-faced nature of the creatures had became apparent.

The second book, The Classic of Meditation, was written by Huang Shi-Lei at the beginning of the City Age, and it had since become a favorite read for much of the Warlock populace. It was only followed up by the Transcripts of Pujari and Ikora's own writings on the nature of circles. That one had no reliable information, although Taeko had chose it so she could reflect more on her powers and abilities.

The last book, The Treatise of the Traveller's Silence was more intriguing. When Taeko had opened the book, pieces of paper with ciphers had fallen out. Looking over it, they had been there for a long time.

De dggg xrvtvoh Czoqetf VNZMVNZM. Huqs ps fgf yisa hfbs. Gpe toeehrzs suiwg vv toe jtoqwwz aep humy ahzdgg noy old pywok. Tyq Dyinas rds gw bl hzprrv adap. Abyg toe nafgpy dicx pr ibse ka zbkaae ktsz.

Bhl drfo bv Pyoaqqg PAYMFZWN qs ao sq vvldln zz WPMLPOE. Abyg woee Bfbrejt JQSQA's zutosfa hhvv nsrv eztrnzvahld ktog ee dicx dewcleu iwgp pyokaqbt SDIWF.

Dewtvcfx GJQ-

The first one had been written in a Vignere cipher, although there was a blood splatter at the end of the ciphered message. When Taeko had looked through the book, one word written in the back cover had jumped out at it. It was written as H_R_MI_, almost as if some of the letters had been erased a long ago.

She was instantly intrigued by this turn of events. Gathering up the papers she had found, she then copied the word she had found in the book.

' _This looks like this is going to be my newest obsession_ ,' she thought wryly.

* * *

 _ **Neon City**_

Patrick W. Jones was totally relaxed, his latest victim of his desire was laying next to him, her face stained with tears. The teenage girl's pelvic was bruised and battered, and there were bloodstains on the sheet below the two. He had sadistically tortured her before he had taken his liberties.

He had been the fourth child in a family of eight, and his parents refused to buy any toys for the children. They had instead forced him and his four siblings to work to make ends meet. His father was fond of the belief that humility could only be found in endless work, and this grated on Patrick's nerves. He had killed both parents when he turned nine after he had found one of his father's guns. During his teen years he shook other teens down and stole their hard-earned money and toys. However, after he had been spotted by Scarlet Jester recruiters, he had quickly been accepted as an inductee.

His gang initation had been successful, as he had killed two Mafia soldiers; they were members of the Corleone family. These men were on the cusp of being promoted to made men, and to cut through their viscera was satisfying. He loved the feeling of blood splattering, of the intoxicating thrill that dominance gave him.

This had slowly developed into an obsession with sadism in all it forms. Patrick prided himself as a master of dominance. He loved looking at all the pretty young things, imagining the ways he could break them.

His first victim had been Maria Rooney, a young woman with dreams of starring in one of the Crewlin movies. He had lured her under the false pretense of being a talent scout from one of the major studios. When she had arrived at the house he had resided in, he had forced her into the bedroom and handcuffed her. Over the course of six days he subjected her to various tortures before branding her as one of many sex slaves to comes. She had died three years into her tenure.

As Patrick climbed the ranks of his gang, he was given larger areas to control. This fed into his mania, as he forced the families in the area to hand over their most attractive daughters or risk being killed in horrifying ways.

The door opened, and his underlings hushed in another nude teen. This waif of a girl had short wavy hair in a pixie cut and her wide green eyes were frightened. He smirked as the two men dragged her toward the bed he was in. He hauled her into his bed. Licking her neck as the girl made a futile attempt to fight off his advances, he didn't even notice the shadow lurking in the corner of his private chambers.

This all changed when two throwing knives penetrated his underling's craniums, leaving trail of blood on their faces and splattering on the floor. Patrick turned around, and saw an android with fins for ears, and glowing red eyes standing, aiming a wicked gun at him. He rummaged all around for his gun and drew it. He fired it at the abomination, expecting that it would be destroyed in the hail of bullets. The android darted gracefully through the gunfire, drawing twin knifes from scabbards in his armour. He leapt up in the air and with the skill of an acrobat, he moved in for the kill.

Patrick tried to block the knives, but for all his efforts he received shattered forearms. He then rolled out of another stroke, then he fired again. The android dodged before he made another strike, aiming his knife at Patrick's ribs. It succeeded, the knife breaking skin and shattering Patrick's ribs. He winced in pain before he aimed the gun at the android's face and fired. The sounds came out as empty clicks, before the android slit his throat after disarming Patrick.

As the artificial life form left the room, Patrick W. Jones cursed the thing as he slowly bled to death.

* * *

 **To all readers, can you guess the keyword for the cipher in this chapter. Brownie points to whoever guess it first.**


	7. Chapter 7

**The Winding Desert**

 **Chapter 7**

 _ **No Man's Land**_

Palo Alto was a rather quaint tiny town, with its charming adobe architecture, and the only memorable feature it had was its phallic water tower. Many people who had passed through the town had made jokes about it, and some of them even pretended to give it the "old fashioned salute" or whatever one might call a hand job on No Man's Land nowadays.

It had been established by one Pablo Suarez-Zavala nearly 80 years ago; Despite the founder's attempts to attract more people to his little corner by bragging about the rich mineral deposits that had been discovered there, it never expanded beyond its initial populace of 88 until 41 years later. During that period, there was a baby boom fuelled by migrants from the nearby city of Valdoor that ballooned the populace to 240. The school was established soon after that event, beginning out as a one-room schoolhouse before expanding to a six-classroom building as the needs of the populace increased.

This was where the group was currently located; the bus they were on had broken down during the second leg of the long journey toward Valdoor, which begun in the small city of Pablo's Gauntlet, and would have ended in Valspar Town. From there Meryl Stryfe, Ania Solezulam, Milly Thompson and Vash would have transferred to a larger, more comfortable coach for their last leg of their journey.

The two hotels there were filled to the brim, and during busy times the aforementioned school acted as overflow space.

"These cots are so uncomfortable, Meryl," Milly had groused when she saw the rows lined up in the small gymnasium of the school.

"I've slept on worse," Vash noted as he inspected one of them. They were ugly and as Milly had noted they were built for function, not comfort. He had slept on many beds like them over the course of his long life.

"Me too," Ania snorted, "I once had to crash at a seedy hotel in Neon City. That Traveler-damned place was filled with whores fucking their clients. The beds were filthy, too. Some even had dried feces seared over them. Fucking worst place I've ever stayed at."

"Did you leave a negative review of the place?" Meryl's question caught the Awoken gunslinger off guard.

"Oh, yeah. Absolutely blasted the owners for their negligence and jackassery. When I asked them to clean up their act, they swore at me. One even threatened me with a gun," Ania retorted.

"I'm not that surprised, Ania. Neon City is the place where people's dreams go to die," Milly's observation made sense in a twisted way, when the four mulled over it. Meryl personally knew two people who had fell for Neon City's allure. For Ania, it was one of the popular girls at her junior high school who had headed straight toward the place with the intention to break it big at the Crewlin studios. The last time the female gunslinger had seen her, she was a drug-addicted prostitute being pimped out by one of the Scarlet Jesters there. Vash had travelled through the city many times, and he had seen the red-light districts there. The women and girls there were contained in cage-like displays, and their expressions were totally bereft of any joy whatever. It didn't help matters that they were forced to dress scantily in the hope of attracting the male gaze. Occasionally he would hear muffled screams from inside the brothels; he had assumed that one of the prostitutes were being forced into a sex act against her will.

"Remember Palkabayagalbington?" Milly asked, as she took out a scone she had purchased in a café in Pablo's Gauntlet and begun chowing down on it.

"Yes, the claim we filed in that town was one of the strangest. It seems it involved an exploding kettle and two thugs," Meryl's reminiscing was met with confusion from Vash and Ania.

"And to make it worse, the deputy mayor was involved," Milly added.

While the two employees of the Bernadelli Insurance Society conversed about their work, Vash and Ania had turned their attention to the beds in front of them. They could see that the blankets the town provided for the stranded travellers were rather flimsy. It made sense, as Palo Alto had a limited budget because of its size.

"Shit," Vash's whispered remark summed up the entire group's feelings about being shoed in with other people like a warehouse.

"Let's hit the sack as soon as possible," Ania yawned; three hours earlier the group had spent their time peeking into the little shops on the main street. They were full of kitschy things that even her parents would have disapproved of, like garden gnome side tables and Kinkade-style paintings. There was even a set of pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Ania had been sorely tempted to purchase them and then plop them in front of their home as a prank.

"Good night," Milly yawned, as she laid down on her berth. There were murmurs of affirmation, before four pairs of eyes shut as their owners drifted off to dreamland.

* * *

 _ **Freehold, Mars**_

Benjamin Sherman gunned down a Legionary while Mirai Harding prepped her Shadowshot. The group of Cabal had been herded into a tight group by the Exo Striker on his team, Banshee-12. She was an experienced Titan, having fought on many battlefields over the course of her career. From what the Exo told Benjamin, Banshee-44 was ancient by comparison; he had been around ever since the beginning of the Collapse, and as a result his number reflected the numerous resets he had experienced.

She had been found on an abandoned space station way out in the Reef by her Ghost. She was able to successfully escape it, arriving in the Last City well over 110 years ago. After her initial training under Zavala, Banshee-12 was quickly accepted into the Firebreak Order, and she rose through the ranks as she accumulated experience in fighting the various foes that made up the Darkness.

Benjamin had just recently been accepted into the ranks of the Sunbreaker Order, after he caught Ouros' eye during a particularly bloody battle between Vex and a band of Fallen from the House of Winter on Mercury near Osiris's lighthouse. They were intent on stealing some obscure Vex component to incorporate in the Servitors they had among them. He had charged the two groups head on and routed them decisively, wiping them out with lightning-charged fists. The Third Empyreal Magistrate had taken him to the Solar Forge, where he learned to summon the Hammer of Sol. He was shortly initiated into the Order soon after that event.

Mirai's Shadowshot stuck the ground at the center of the group. The tethers reached out and grasped it unfortunate victims in it tenebrous grasp. That Which Lies Beneath the Universe feasted upon them, and it sighed in satisfaction after partaking in the morsel that the Nightstalker offered it.

"Damn, that was some crazy shit," Banshee-12, "Still couldn't believe we were all chosen for Taskforce VOYAGER,"

"Agreed, I was totally floored. Thought it was one of Cayde's bloody pranks," The Nightstalker threw her two cents in.

"I can recall the news about the SEEDS project. Everyone was chatting about it for days, ever since the data was recovered. Someone pissed me off with an offhand comment about these Dead Orbits fucks wanting first dibs on the info," Benjamin admitted sheepishly, "Although the Firebreak guy had a point, I absolutely hate Jalaal. He's a cowardly asshole."

"Zavala once said that the idiot didn't understand that his ancestors made the mistake of fleeing and it made the situation worse, though," Mirai noted, "There were billion of causalities because of that foolish choice."

"Do you remember the Vonj twins?" Banshee-12's query flummoxed her teammates.

"I dunno," the human Sunbreaker shrugged, "I'm not much of a rumor person. All I know is that their names are Shuro and Shin, but that's it for me."

"I've heard of their brawl at Rux Lupalis. I assumed they were quite pissed at the idea of being uprooted from the new home they had just made there," the biracial Nightstalker interjected, "Little wonder the Guardians who were tasked with bringing them in had to resort to the Satomi restraints."

All three shuddered at the thought of these things. The Warlock Satomi, well known for her forays into Murder Row and her dabbling in thanatonautics, had also developed these limits for unruly Guardians during her career. There were three types, and each one was specifically designed for a specific class. The Rhino-type were specifically designed to deal with Titans; It was a device that attached to the wrists and was specifically aimed at disrupting the class's physical capabilities, including super strength. The Hunters' shackles were called the Mustang-type and it focused more on disabling any attempts to escape, be it through their natural dexterity or any act of flexibility. The Warlocks' was far the most severe, as it temporarily severed any connection to the Light whatever. That one was called the Cormorant-type.

Both Benjamin and the unnamed Firebreak Titan he had brawled with had been placed in the Rhino restraint after the little incident in The Three Castles, another pub popular with Titans. It was one of his most regrettable moments. His fellow Guardians had stared at him while the duo was pulled off to a specifically designed drunk tank for their ilk.

"I hated being stuck in these restraints," Benjamin admitted as he looked around, cradling his Suros Regime in his arms.

"Me too. I once brawled with Baruch Kovj over an arm-wrestling match. Got in trouble for that one," Banshee-12 's embarrassment was apparent on her mechanical face as she removed her helmet. Her burgundy chassis was highlighted by her amber optics and mouth. A set of white stacked triangles was painted between them, and she had black antennae where the ears would be situated on Human and Awoken.

"We need to move on," Mirai pointed out, "So much to do in such a short span of time."

There were murmurs of agreement from the other two.

* * *

 _ **Palo Alto**_

 _*Begin Dream Sequence*_

 _Rylie Winder. Jackson Selassie. Ilona Zagitova. Pauline Sherman. Norton Paschko. All childhood friends of Ania Solezulam, ever since kindergarten._

 _She was her six years old self and all of them were playing on the playground of their elementary school. The signage on the wall of it read Poseidon Elementary School._

" _Let's race! Last one's a rotten egg!" Pauline, a redheaded girl with vibrant blue eyes yelled. The six lined up at one of the long ends of the playground. All six kids sped along the school grounds, intent on reaching the end of the school grounds. It suddenly changed to open desert, with the native flora of No Man's Land. They kept on sprinting, trying to outrun each other._

 _Norton Paschko faded away; Ania grew to an eight-years-old. Then Pauline Sherman did the same thing, and she grew to that of an eleven-years-old. Jackson Selassie and Illona Zagitova disappeared as her body became thirteen-years-old. Leaving only Rylie Winder. As Ania grew through fourteen, fifteen sixteen and so on, Rylie was there with her going through similar growth._

 _It was when the duo was twenty-one that they came upon a chasm. They stopped. It was one of the canyons that was ubiquitous to No Man's Land. Ania leapt over it, and as Rylie thought she was about to fall to her death, the Awoken woman jumped again, reaching the other side. Ania turned to the side her old friend was on. Their eyes met, and it was in that moment Ania realized Rylie couldn't pull the same thing she just did without dying._

 _Several cloaked figures in light armour approached her. They had the same AIs that followed her father around, but something was amiss. Ania suddenly spotted one that didn't have a partner, and it hovered above her before it moved to eye level._

" _At last, I've found my Guardian! Nice to meet you," It made a pirouette before it moved to her shoulder._

 _*End Dream Sequence*_

Ania woke up with a cry. That dream she had recurred for many years ever since she was twelve. It always ended at the mid-jump point. But strangely she had reached the endpoint, with her meeting another AI that originated from the same source as her father's. But why would this thing choose her? She was an ordinary bounty hunter and not that worthy of an AI; it would be better off in other hands, like the scientists working to help terraform No Man's Land.

But there was Markus Granlund, and he was a bartender. He had one; it seemed that it granted powers to the ones that was chosen to be its partner. It reminded Ania of the concept of the shards from an old novel that was converted from web format called Worm. In that story they were fragments of larger beings that granted powers to the parahumans in that setting. They were intelligences that could influence their host, and some were parasitic. The difference between the AI and them was that the shards of the Worm universe operated behind the scenes, and they resided on an alternate Earth that was totally devoid of life. The AIs that followed her father and Granlund assisted them and often advised them whenever necessary, and their symbiotic relationship were mutualistic.

The cloaked figures were another matter entirely. Growing up Ania had always thought cloaks looked cooler than coats, and had dressed accordingly, even when it had violated school uniform codes. The teachers had given up on Ania after the tenth time she was sent to the principal for dress code violations. Her unusual idiosyncrasies had been noted by her teachers; she had been banned from bringing bladed objects like knives to school even though fidgeting with them helped her focus in class. So, she had retorted to tapping, twirling and flipping pens and pencils. It still irritated her classmates and teachers to an extent, though.

Ania had recalled that they held themselves in a manner not unlike herself. They were constantly shifting from one foot to the other, and some twitched their hand, as if they were reaching for something. The Awoken woman had lost count of how many times her impatience had gotten her in trouble with her teachers and her parents. Even Meryl and Vash had took note of this trait. They had assumed the movements was a way to keep Ania's focus from slipping when she had to stay idle for lengthy periods of time.

"P-please pass the pudding…" Milly mumbled in her sleep. Ania face-palmed; Meryl had warned her about the aforementioned woman's tendency to talk in her sleep. She could recall one particularly funny dream conversation Milly had that referenced an argument with fairies while flying on a balloon headed to the moon Cúig.

"W-What?"

"I'm the queen of caramel pudding! Bow down, my loyal subjects!" Another mumbling from the asleep woman had made Ania bite back a snicker. She made a silent vow to the Traveler to purchase a portable tape recorder to record some of Milly's dream mumblings.

"That was hilarious," Vash commented; he had been awake for a bit longer than Ania, "The thing people say in their sleep is a staple of comedy."

"Not to mention there's contests for discovering the funniest sleep-talking lines," she said.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Recording Milly's sleep-talk and entering the tapes in one of them? Great idea!"

* * *

The light of the rising double suns broke through the skylights of the gymnasium the group were in. Milly was still mumbling various non-sensical things in her sleep, while Meryl stretched and yawned as she awoke.

"Good morning," Her greetings were met with murmurs of acknowledgment from Vash and Ania.

"I'm made of awesome. I'm going to-," A glass of water was splashed upon a sleeping Milly's face. She flailed around clumsily. This action caused the tall woman to fall off her cot; the people surrounding the group stared at her.

"Do you ever realize how annoying your sleep talking is?" An irritated Meryl held up an empty glass. Milly figured that it was her who had poured the water. Ania had a big fat sweatdrop on her head while Vash chuckled nervously.

"And some of the things that come straight out of your mouth when you're asleep stumps the hell out of us," Ania pointed out.

"Not to mention embarrassing," Meryl's eye twitched in annoyance.

"S-Sorry," Milly's nervous chuckle was met with face palms from her fellow females. She stood up from where she fell and dusted off her clothes. Grabbing her teal and yellow duster, she quickly put it on.

"Onward to the cafeteria, my friends," Meryl shooed her friends on. The hallways of the school were painted a sunny yellow. The dim incandescent lighting served to mute the color; in a brighter, fluorescent setting the color would have been annoyingly bright. Children's art projects were pinned to a few billboards on each side and others held photos of the students in that classroom.

The cafeteria was painted in viridian green and cream. The black and white tile checkerboard floor had seen better days, and some parts were cracked where children had rocked back and forth on their chairs. The pendant lightning hovering over each table were industrial-style fixtures. They had obviously been purchased for their sheer durability.

The buffet had meagre options, though. There were scrambled eggs, toasts, cold cereal and breakfast sausage; the group desperately hoped for more, like pancakes and bacon. The beverages were limited to only water, orange juice and milk.

"Damnit," Ania muttered as she picked up a plate. Vash, Milly and Meryl followed suit; all silently cursed their ill-luck.

After they had filled up their plate the group moved to a table in one of the corners.

"Did you hear about the former child actress Keisha Breyan?" Milly asked as she bit into a sausage.

"Er, I'm not that well-versed in celebrity culture," Ania replied. She was uncomfortable with the idea of fame.

"Never liked Crewlin. I flat-out refuse to support them. That place is an endless circus of spoiled brats and paparazzi," Meryl scoffed. Her annoyance was clear on her face.

"There's rumors that some directors turn a blind eye to the sexual exploitation of aspiring actors and actresses," Ania pointed out, "I would not be surprised, given the fact that Crewlin is in Neon City."

"Well, that's what the rumors swirling around Breyan alleged. They claimed a famous director molested her. And that her parents were bribed to ignore the abuse," Milly pulled out a celebrity magazine she had purchased a few days ago and gestured to it, "The article about her in this claimed that a tell-all book was being inked by Breyan's paternal uncle."

"I've heard worse," Vash's cryptic admittance shocked and flummoxed the women.

"The last time a tell-all caused a major scandal, it ended up booting both the incumbent mayor of Macca City and his deputy from office," Ania's observation made sense. Tell-all books were risky business. Many such books had backfired on their authors in the last few decades, with costly results. Some of them were lawsuits while others ended up costing the people who wrote them numerous job offers. One particularly egregious example was Pilar Robertsen's _Memoirs of a Backstage Assistant_ ; it revealed allegations of sordid sexual affairs of several high-ranking opera actors with teenage girls. After the book was published, the author was fired from her job and placed on the blacklist of various theatres.

"Was it five or six years ago? I can't recall," Milly commented.

"If I recall correctly, it was _seven_ years ago," Vash had taken the initiative to correct Milly's mistake.

* * *

 _ **Sixty-four kilometres northwest of Palo Alto**_

A tall man with carmine hair tied back in one of these ponytails that was prominent in samurai-style anime walked alongside three henchmen. He wore an open sage overcoat over black slacks and two criss-crossed belts was layered over the bottoms. His hard-wearing boots were charcoal, and they were steel-toed. In the holsters attached to his belts there were wakizashi, and on his back he carried a titanium-alloy boomerang.

His nut-brown skin had several tribal tattoos over his exposed chest, and his face had two scars that didn't detract from his handsome appearance. His hands had unusually long fingers, and they were tattooed. The phalanges of the right hand with the word "TAKE" and the left "THAT"; The henchmen had assumed that it was a covert insult at whoever had trampled on this man's pride.

"Takayama, have you heard? The Humanoid Typhoon was spotted recently in Palo Alto," One of them put his hands behind his head. He had a decaying bucktooth and a vicious scar that begun at the forehead and ran down to his neck. It was a direct result of another man torturing him while he was in No Man's Land's only prison with a glass shard.

"And he's heading toward Valdoor, Pine," The second henchmen, a man built like a sumo wrestler replied. He wore non-descript brown overalls and worn-out black cowboy boots. His bald head once bore a lush mane of blond hair but as his forehead receded, he had decided to shave it all off.

"I never liked that place, Bount," The last one grumbled. The only thing that stood out about this man was his nose. It was comically big, and as a child he had been made fun of for this feature. His hair was a tangled mop of navy blue.

"Asshole,"

"Dicktard,"

"Cocksucker,"

Takayama watched as his henchman exchanged insults between the three of them. Bount, the fat one charged at Pine with the aim of giving him a good pummeling, only to be tripped by the third man.

"Ocala, how dare you!" Bount roared angrily at him. Ocala proceed to kick the man in the balls. The rotund man's voice went two octaves higher than his usual pitch and he clutched at his crotch.

"That's for being a dumb fuck," Ocala snarled.

"HALT your bickering, RIGHT NOW!" Takayama's annoyance with the three had grew to near-volcanic levels. He drew one of his wakizashi and brandished it at the insufferable fools he had picked up in Dankin Town a few months ago. Pine held up his hand to his shoulders in surrender. Bount flipped Ocala the bird as he got up.

"Sorry, Takayama," Pine said; his nerves were further frayed by the fact that his employer was brandishing one of his weapons at him.

"You're-," A spurt of blood came out of no where. Bount clutched his arm; it turned out Takayama had the guts to cut off his forearm.

"Don't question my orders," Takayama spat out, "We're going after Vash the Stampede now. No if, buts and whys."

Ocala murmured a string of curse words under his breath. Why did he had to be stuck with idiots like Pine and Bount?

* * *

 _ **Palo Alto**_

Ania swung her legs while she sat on one of the benches in the bus station. Next to her, Vash was doing a little goofy jig with his legs only. It involved doing a kind of movement that one moved the heels, then the forefeet, before going back to them. Rinse and repeat. Meryl wasn't impressed by that one. She found it extremely irritating. Milly was singing a screeching rendition of _Oops, I did it again!_ It was written by one ancient pop singer who will forever remain nameless; it was known to have originated from long before the Collapse.

Ania bonked Milly on the head, as veins popped on her head. A bump grew on Milly's head. As Meryl followed up with another hit a second later, a smaller one soon budded from the original one.

"What was that for!" Milly winced as she rubbed the spot where Ania and Meryl had pummeled her earlier.

"Traveler, do you ever realize how bad you sound," She groaned as she rubbed her temples.

"Jesus His Holiness Christ help us all if we ever get forced to listen to your singing, Milly," Meryl's murmured prayer was barely audible to all, save for Ania and Vash's enhanced hearing.

"Ave Maria, Ave Maria," the unnamed man next to Meryl whispered his agreement. He returned to prayer, palming his Irish penal rosary.

"You sound like a _fucking_ strangled cat," The blue-skinned gunslinger snorted. She picked up a throwing knife from veiled sheaths in her pants and twirled it, while looking out the window. Milly sweatdropped. By the Saviour's good name, why did Ania had to bring this point up?

"All passengers on Route 118, please report to gate B-6. Repeat, all passengers on Route 118, please report to gate B-6," the public-address system blared over the loudspeakers.

"That's our bus," Vash pointed; the group headed to the gate. As the quarter took out their boarding passes and ID, each one found themselves anxious to get out of Palo Alto. The town was boring, and there weren't much to do there except jeering at the water tower's unfortunate shape.

The bus they boarded was spacious and comfortable, a far cry from the cramped quarters of the original bus they were on. The seats were upholstered in gray velvet with sky blue and indigo dots and they were set up in pairs in each side. The overhead luggage racks were just as expansive and could hold more luggage.

Accord to the PR representative of Alghrabi Express who had been dispatched to Palo Alto, the model they had been riding on previously was due to be phased out in the coming three months. The four had assumed that the transport company had run the buses until they were totally non-functioning. It made sense, as the owners were eager to squeeze every cent out of the network.

As the duo sat down in their assigned seats, Kuroneko-sama could be seen lurking under Meryl's chair. She bared her teeth before yawning and falling back asleep.

* * *

 _ **Abelo District, December**_

Larymissa Solezulam checked over the inventory of the boutique she worked at. It had been established well over twelve years ago by a woman called Grace Winona Riddle. After she had been murdered by a controlling ex-boyfriend on her wedding day four years ago, it had been transferred to the control of her younger sister, Laurella Riddle-Breyan. The name was changed from Grace's Dress Shoppe to the Fuchsia Lily, and the interior had been rearranged and repainted. The business changed it focus from providing bridal and formal attire to providing funky, vintage-style fashion from Pre-Collapse society.

She had noted that one of the most popular styles, the Grace, was running out in both white and red. It was a polka-dot shirtdress with an A-line skirt and rose-shaped buttons. She scribbled notes to order more.

The Seraphina, a one-shoulder dress with a matching belt and a colorful butterfly print was coming in today. It was going to be one of the newest offerings in the boutique. It had been inspired by the 1970s disco scene. The only other disco-inspired item was a silver holographic halter-neck romper and it hadn't been selling well. Larymissa had figured that it was the plunging neckline. The women of December were nearly puritanical when it came to exposing cleavage in social settings. They had always chosen square and scoop necks for their clubbing wear.

She enjoyed the attentions of her husband when she showed off her cleavage, though. The way his eyes darkened as he admired the curves of her body. The way his hands wandered up and down her body, both clothed and nude never ceased to arouse her. And his mouth… the sounds that Cegrim coaxed out of her when he put it to her secret regions would make polite company blush a nice shade of beet red.

"What do you think of this," Misha Lehnsherr asked. The woman was short, and her buxom chest was a continued source of embarrassment as men often stared at it. The clipboard she carried held one of her latest designs. It consisted of a polka-dot blouse with butterfly sleeves and heart-shaped buttons. The swatches of chiffon fabric pinned to the picture came in two different colorways. One was ecru with burnt orange dots, and the other was mustard yellow with black dots.

"I think it need more variety in color," Larymissa answered, "A lilac and white variant would be popular with the older crowd."

"And a fuchsia and black version would certainly catch the eye of the twenty-something crowd," Misha agreed. She had realized that although her design was sound, people liked having a variety of options to choose from.

They turned to a swatch board filled with various shades of colors. Three shades of lilac were laid out side-by shade. Two were muted; one had a bluish undertone while the other had grayish tones. The third was a bit brighter.

"I've heard rumours that your daughter is travelling with the Humanoid Typhoon," Laurella Breyan entered the door, interrupting the two's thoughts as they inspected the swatches. She was a tall and spindly woman with a morose-looking face.

"She was always courting trouble one way or another," Larymissa crossed her arms, "I recall when she pulled some stunt on her junior high school's roof based on a dare from her friend. Got the two of them in trouble with the school principal. They had detention for a week over that event."

"Do it have anything to do with the Haversley debacle?" Laurella's question stunned the two. It was a well-known fact that the scandal that the woman had mentioned was related to some school administrations rigging test scores to keep some low-income students from attending certain colleges. It was only when some unnamed journalist dug up the dirt on the details that it had became an issue. The ongoing events had received wide coverage across various television channels. It had resulted in the downfall of the newly elected superintendent Jack Haversley when it turned out he had colluded with some of the factions involved to turn the elections in his favour. The December police had raided his office and arrested him three weeks after his installment, and the rest of the council under him voted 9-2 to permanently remove and blacklist the corrupt fool.

"Yes. Ania had the gall to hang a banner from the roof that claimed that Peter Wicker, the principal at that time was a corrupt liar," Larymissa's answer was not surprising. It was a well-known fact that Peter Wicker had colluded with the people involved in the debacle.

It didn't come as a surprise that the man had been murdered during his stint at No Man's Land's only prison. Nobody liked him, not even his fellow prisoners. He was only out for himself and his impressive ego rubbed on people's nerves.

"The fact is that Vash the Stampede tend to attract trouble wherever he goes," Laurella pointed out the obvious. There had been countless reports of towns being leveled because the aforementioned individual happened to be there at the time. From recent rumors, Fenlarl Town had barely escaped the destruction that had befallen Dankin Town. Larymissa sent a silent prayer to the Nine that the next town her daughter was in would be spared.

* * *

 _ **One hundred fifty-six kilometres northwest of Palo Alto**_

The soft light of Uno, Niidama and Cúig was visible through the windows of the bus the quartet was riding on. The scenery was dreadfully boring, and not even the sleepy mumblings of Milly could save Vash and Ania from a severe case of the lethargies.

"This trip is just as boring as Mr. Plein's class," Ania grumbled.

"Who is he to you?" Vash's query was quickly answered.

"Social studies teacher in high school. A total bore. I've lost count of how many times my classmates and I've fell asleep in his class," She crossed her arms in annoyance.

"Really?" Vash's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Everybody at my school nicknamed him Professor Binns for that reason," Ania scoffed. Vash could understand why, the Harry Potter series had long since become a literary classic in the centuries that had passed since it was published. It was so beloved that digital versions had been uploaded to the archives on the colony ships that had brought humanity to No Man's Land.

"I recall one elderly windbag from the outskirts of April. He jabbered my ears off with the same old stories of his youth. Apparently, they _were_ all about _sexual conquests_. I tuned him out after the tenth time he begun bragging," the red-clad gunslinger reminisced.

"I once saw someone get murdered by another because he was bragging too much about sexually overpowering women," The blue-skinned woman pointed out.

"Really?"

"It occurred in Gallus. The man in question was drunk. He was on quite the spiel. When he began bragging about how he had forced a landowner's teenage daughter to perform some sex act I will not dare mention he was shot in the heart by somebody. It turned out that person was the girl's older brother. This asshat died instantly," The explanation Ania gave had reminded Vash of similar incidents he had encountered over the course of his long life.

One particularly memorable incident had occurred in Gustav's Sickle. Somebody had just bought drinks for the entire saloon Vash was in, and tongues began loosening. One of the bounty hunters there begun bragging about some rather racy antics involving a thirteen-years-old girl from the town. It didn't turn out well and a mob descended upon this fool. He was beaten to death, all because he had decided to molest a child.

Ania sighed. She took out her knife and twirled and flipped it as she watched the scenery pass by the window of the seat she occupied.

"Have you heard the rumors? The one abo-"

"GET DOWN!" Vash shouted. A giant boomerang bisected the bus, and his warning was timely.

Four thugs approached the ruined bus.

"Well, well, if it isn't the Humanoid Typhoon…," The tallest one said, his carmine ponytail blowing in the wind.


	8. Chapter 8

**The Winding Deserts**

 **Chapter 8**

 _ **Rux Lupalis, Tangled Shore, The Reef**_

The refugee camp that had been built there in the aftermath of the Reef Wars was now home to hundreds of thousands of Awoken who had fled their homes during the slow advance of Oryx's dreadnought during that event. As it grew, it become another haven for rejected Awoken and with good reason, as some of the people there had repeatedly warned Mara Sov that her actions would eventually doom the Reef Awoken as a whole. The Queen dismissed their caution and charged head-on into combat with the Hive ship. This advice turned out to be prescient, as the entire Reef fleet was wiped out by the events that had followed.

Shuro Vonj was among one of these. As a nineteen-years-old aspiring to join the Royal Armada, she and her twin brother Shin had been killed by Baroness Drevis during the Reef Wars on the space station Amethyst. During this time their parents were in negotiations to give their youngest daughter, Lissen Vonj, up to the Techeuns. As it happened, the sudden ambush of the Fallen was not anticipated. Shuro and Shin had died defending the children there.

It was not until nearly two hundred years later that two Ghosts entered the ruins of Amethyst. They had scanned many skeletons there. When the duo had come upon the skeletons of the twins, they were overjoyed as they had finally found their Guardians. When the revival process was completed Shuro had gasped, the stale air of the abandoned station filling her unused lungs. Shin had followed soon after; his glowing blue eyes, as unfocused as a newborn infant's, darted back and forth.

The duo had brawled through the scavenging Dregs and Vandals on the station, eventually coming upon an abandoned corsair ship. Revving it up they had headed straight for Rux Lupalis as it was the only haven for their ilk as there were ongoing rumours the Queen had a rather complicated relationship with the Guardians of the Last City. It didn't help matters that the Queen's Emissary Petra Venj had called upon an airstrike that had killed nine Guardians and their Ghosts.

In Rux Lupalis they had stumbled across Petrina's Hope, a makeshift orphanage. This was where Shuro and Shin had stayed for two and a half years. The children there were always a joy to behold and the twins had enjoyed helping the staff with them. One of Shuro's favorite children was Millian Tero, a young girl with odd powers not unlike these seen among the Techeuns. The girl had reminded Shuro of her long-lost sister. Shin had gravitated toward a hyperactive boy called Baylor Piren. She had lost count of how many time Shin and Baylor had raced each other around the area where the orphanage was located in.

However, through unknown means the Guardians had found out about Shuro and Shin. As they swooped upon the orphanage with the intent to take the duo to the Last City for intensive training in their Traveler-given abilities, the twins had resisted. Their attempts to fight the Guardians sent to retrieve them had resulted in them being restrained. During their journey to the City, Shin and Shuro had gave their captors insulting nicknames, but the team had shrugged them off.

"We've heard worse," One of them had answered.

Shuro and Shin's audacity to cuss the Speaker & Vanguard out had certainly been noticed by their fellow Guardians. It had made for a rather memorable event. Zavala had been infuriated by the fact that the newest trainees under his tutelage had acted in such a disrespectful manner.

After they had completed the harsh training as Titans the duo had returned to the Reef; they had made a silent vow to stay away as far as possible from the City.

"Fuck the Vanguard. Fuck the factions. Fuck everything," Shin muttered under his breath. His light teal-green skin was unlike Shuro's own, which was sky blue. He had inherited his eyes and skin from their mother.

"Yeah, politics are a shitshow," Shuro ran her hand through her plum hair. It was the only trait both twins had inherited equally. Her hair was curly, which was a rarity among Awoken. She currently had it tied up in a high ponytail. On the other hand, his brother's straight hair was styled in such a way that it resembled a mohawk. The undershave was patterned in the shape of the symbol of the Royal Armada.

"At least here we don't have to deal with the bullshit Executor Hideo, Arach Jalaal, and Lakshimi-2 spew," His blue eyes met Shuro's orange.

"Yet Petra Venj grows tired of all the assassination attempts on her. How many times have we stopped them?" the female Defender asked.

"I dunno. Just lost count last month, Shuro," he answered.

"Have you heard the rumours about the Solezulam family? The one with the missing daughter?" Shuro's query caught Shin off guard.

"Er…I don't understand all the grandstanding of these nobles," The male Striker sighed in annoyance.

"They said that the daughter ran away. Slighted her betrothed by doing that," Shuro answered.

"And what happened next?"

"The Queen exiled Myss Solezulam because there were claims that the marriage would have been made under duress. They turned out to be genuine."

"And the fiancé?"

"He remains an unwed bachelor. Remember that drunk we saw in Mahrik Nos? My ghost told me that man was him," Shuro pointed out. Oselan, her ghost materialized next to her shoulder.

"It seems to me that he was obsessed with Larymissa Solezulam, and he still is. His clan exiled him after she left the Reef," The Ghost's nodes twitched as he explained his observation. He was clad in a marbleized vermilion and white shell.

"And there's allegations that he stalked Larymissa's younger sister," Pali, Shin's ghost added as she materialized. Her shell was purple with red tips.

* * *

 _ **No Man's Land**_

Milly Thompson's eyes darted back and forth at the scene she had just witnessed. The sliced bus was going to be the first in a lengthy list of headaches for her employers. It was likely that Meryl would be typing up the insurance assessments while Milly interviewed witnesses.

"What the _fuck_ do you _want with him_?" Ania snarled at the bandits standing opposite Vash and her.

' _There goes off her mouth_ ' Milly thought. Over the days the three had gotten acquainted with Ania Solezulam, the most prominent trait they had found that she had the mouth of Earth's ancient sailors. This reminded the taller insurance agent of her neighbour, a mechanic who ran the local automotive shop in Calgary. The man was called Tom Perris Riddle, and he smoked, drank and swore a lot. There also had been some rather… strange new articles about the man too. One in particular involved being arrested on indecency charges by the local sheriff. Milly didn't want to _hear_ about the _details_ of _that incident._

"I am here… to _claim the 60 billion double dollar bounty on his head_ ," The tallest man had one heck of a sneer. Meryl and Milly gasped, while Vash and Ania spat out a string of curses that wouldn't be out of place among a sandsteamer crew. The gunslingers reached for their guns.

"You-," Ania was about to insult the man who was currently after Vash's head, but a shot from one of his three henchmen interrupted her tirade. She pulled off a dodge, just barely avoiding serious injury. She fired back, most of her shots missing the trio.

"Shit-faced bastards," She grumbled, as Vash avoided another boomerang throw from the man after his flesh.

"Takayama, this is such a-," The carmine-haired man took out one of his wakizashi and bonked the fattest one of the bunch in the head with the blunt end of it. The man had a stump of an arm that was recently bandaged.

"You worthless bag of blubber! I should have offed you the moment you let your dumbass mouth run off!" The man scolded his insubordinate minion. Milly had figured that the name the fatso called him was the carmine-haired man's. The other two began beating upon the fat man, and each one called the man a demeaning insult.

It was in that moment that the quartet took the opportunity to escape Takayama and his groupies. Ania had took out one of the smoke bombs that she had restocked while in Pablo's Gauntlet and threw it down, covering their escape.

"Traveler-damned piss-faced cock-sucking dog-fucking asshats," She mumbled underneath her breath. The Bernadelli Insurance Society employees stared at her as if she had grown a second head. They weren't used to hearing such language and the accompanying imagery that it brought up. Vash rolled his eyes; they were so sheltered that they found such imagery to be shocking. It was the point of such language; it was offensive to the vast majority of people on No Man's Land. But among the gunslingers it was fairly routine to say such things, either as direct insults or muffled threats; accompanied by the twitching of hands as if one was reaching for something it could tell so many things words cannot sum up.

"Friggin' monkey-faces," Meryl spat out in annoyance. The other passengers of the bus the quartet was on slowly caught up with them. There were variety of people from all walks of life. Some of them were on business trips, as judged by their neatly pressed suits and sharply starched shirts. Others wore more rustic attire, like flannel shirts and wear-softened boots. And a few wore quite expensive clothing, like one wealthy lady who wore an elaborately embroidered claret velvet cheongsam with a pair of designer black pumps. They had red soles. Meryl had assumed they were nods to a Pre-Collapse fashion designer called Christian Louboutin, who was well-known for his shoes. Milly had told her that her aunt, a prominent opera diva in April had owned some of these imitators in four colorways.

Vash begun goofing around. He begun walking like a campy drag queen would, with little flourishes here and there. His lips were pursued comically, and his arms were bent as he took each step forth, and his hands were held in such a way that made it look like he had limp wrists.

It was a ludicrous sight, but it was Vash the Stampede at his finest. Meryl, Milly and Ania had seen much of his goofiness during their travels with him. One time he had done an odd little dance that had him kick alternating legs out to the side while waving one hand in the air. This jig certainly looked goofy, but it was just so fitting for the Humanoid Typhoon to take enjoyment in doing such silly things. In the background, one of the other passengers held a certain black cat in his arms. He petted her. Her soft purrs went unnoticed, as much of the others held conversations that weren't of much importance.

"I heard rumours Al-Farsi was arrested for bribery charges in April, again," Two men conversed about politics. They were clearly intellectuals, judging by their refined behaviour.

"That asshat was going to steal my thomas and that's why I shot the fucker," another pair of men was chatting about a sagarromi; they were on the outskirts. Thomas were another name for the native sagarromi and was commonly spoken in the Pallid Gulch, Balto Plateau and Seras-Huaraz Lowlands regions. This pair were far more boorish, and one was a chain smoker judging by the way he lit each new cigarette with the butts of previous ones he'd smoked. Ania and Meryl had found the habit to be quite disgusting and with good reason. There had been a plethora of studies that linked chain-smoking to a variety of ailments, including cancers of various kinds.

"Why are you blue?" A young boy tugged at Ania's cape to catch her attention. She hated explaining things like that to people. It was getting too tedious to explain what happened to her ancestors during the Collapse. She was relieved when the mother of the child dragged him away from her as he squalled in protest.

"Hey! Over here!" Milly waved to Meryl and Ania, "I've been trying to contact the Bernadelli Insurance Society. The reception here isn't good."

"Not to mention the bandits after Vash's head," Meryl noted.

' _I really hate my job today_ ,' She thought, even as Vash continued with his goofing around, while Ania shifted from foot to foot while she flipped a knife repeatedly. Milly inspected her cellphone, mumbling something about stupid networks and shifted priorities.

* * *

 _ **The Tower**_

 _ **Guardian Dorms**_

Hachiyama Taeko looked over the list of code words she had written up. Chromonia, Paltromonia, and several other names ending in -nia were written on it. She was about to shift her attention to the coded bits of paper she had on hand when a knock resounded on her bedroom door.

"It's good to see you again, Cam," She giggled. Cam Atepa was a young woman of Vietnamese and Native American descent; she had been revived in Old Sedona inside a mechanic shop. She was a skilled Gunslinger, although she had Bladedancer as her backup.

It was well-known among the Guardians that Taeko and Cam were lovers. Growing up in their previous lives both women had been victims of homophobic bullying in their families, although their schools were more accepting of their sexuality. Taeko's father was a strict, emotionally distant man who expected his daughters to marry men of his choosing; when she had refused, she was kicked out of the family home. Cam Atepa's father, a bible-thumper in her home reserve was both emotionally and physically abusive. He had beaten Cam and her mother in their home many times. When Cam was thirteen, her mother's attempt to leave her father had resulted in her murder and her father was arrested as a result. He was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for first-degree murder. This the lovers knew from the journals they had kept in their possessions when they died. This was why the two Guardians had bonded, despite the fact they were on different fireteams.

"What are these?" The Hunter asked as she inspected the paper Taeko had laid out on her bed.

"They're encrypted notes that I found in a book in the library," The Warlock responded, "They seem to be based on some form of cipher, but I've been trying to find the code name to break it."

"Hmmm… This logo looks familiar. I can't recall what kind of company it belonged to, though," She gestured to a rust red, silver and teal green taegeuk-like logo within a black diamond on one of the notes. When Taeko looked over it, she felt a twinge of familiarity. Her hunch told her that this symbol was connected to her previous life. But how?

"And there's rumours going around that Clovis Bray may had possibly made attempts at corporate espionage in the Golden Age. I doubt the veracity of these discussions, but there has been confirmed reports of one of Clovis Bray's rivals doing the same," Cam pointed out.

"What was the company's name?"

"I think it was Weyland-Yutani. A company with an unsavory reputation. They once tried to source parasitic aliens for a bioweapon once. According to Golden Age records, after a financial scandal revealed itself that company was shut down pending an investigation," the hunter noted, "I was the one who found these records."

"And some of their more… illicit activities included attempts to sabotage Clovis Bray in order to gain an edge over it," Taeko thought back to the records Cam had given her during the time they had spent on the Moon. Some of them had been details on planned assassinations of key Clovis Bray personnel by Wey-Yu hired guns.

Ironically, hired assassins from Clovis Bray had killed the CEO and his cohorts before he could carry out these plans. This led to the revelation of numerous debts that the Weyland-Yutani Corporation owed to various shareholders and the ongoing Ponzi scheme that had been there for well over thirty years.

"Some of Clovis Bray's more outspoken opponents warned against SIVA and Transmission as it currently is. They wanted a kill-switch on these projects in order to keep it from running rampant and turning upon their masters," Taeko said, "They were vindicated by the Iron Lords. It's not a surprise that Saladin still has a dim view of Rasputin because of that event."

"Willa Bray was a bitch," Cam snorted.

"And Peter Weyland was one hell of an asshole. Nobody missed him after his murder; the new reports at around the time of his death were that accurate," Taeko nodded in agreement.

* * *

 _ **Library**_

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Stop it, please! _Yopstel-Mopstel_!"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

" _Ti durak_!" Keisha Murphy's nervous tapping was beginning to grate on Yuri Sokolov's nerves. The Nightstalker was unusually twitchy today. She had literally nothing to do today; other Guardians had taken up all the tasks the Vanguard had on agenda today, including searching the Ishtar Academy for any lost bits of technology. Hence the reason why she had gone to Yuri's usual spot today.

"Ugh, why would Ikora stick you with these kinds of things?" She harrumphed, "There's much more exciting stuff to do."

"She tasked me to do it. I'm one of her best researchers," Yuri explained. He hated Keisha's presence because of how awkward things got when the duo was in the same spot. It kind of reminded him of Fiso's own humiliating experience with Kovj when the two Titans were drunk. The woman got a child out of this event, and the Awoken man hadn't been seen in the City for years.

"Have you heard the rumours about Cayde-6?" Her query flummoxed Yuri.

" _K-kakiye_!?" His exclamation echoed through the library the duo was in.

"Yeah, they said that he once had a son in his old life and that the gun he has is named after that boy," Keisha explained, "Personally I find it believable. I've seen times when Cayde-6 looked morose when he looked at his gun. And Zavala said that Cayde talks in his sleep a lot. It kind of made sense, considering that the Vanguard were once on the same fireteam."

"Sherman does the same thing," Yuri added, "Once, I was assigned to a fireteam with him for a mission lasting a few days. His incessant somniloquy was irritating and I had to resist the urge to strangle the _blyad_ ' out of him."

"Same with Jackal-12. That metal bitch says the craziest shit in her sleep," the Nightstalker reminisced.

"Speaking of her, I'd rather spend the day with Banshee-12,"

"Me too,"

* * *

 **No Man's Land**

"Why are we doing this?"

"Is that guy really the Humanoid Typhoon?"

"I'm going to be late to my business meeting!"

The group of passengers on Route 118 clustered together. Some of the people argued over inconsequential matters, while other either facepalmed or rubbed their temples.

"There he goes again," Meryl sighed in annoyance.

"Vash and his odd tastes in dances," Ania facepalmed. Vash was doing _that_ jig again, his face in a toothy grin that made him look even more ridiculous.

"Not to mention that we fended that Pavlov thug off in Pablo's Gauntlet two days ago," Milly added.

"It resulted in the destruction of Dorry's Tavern though," Ania pointed out.

"Vash really is a trouble magnet," the taller brunette's observation made sense.

"My uncle once fended off a bunch of Mafia soldiers with a fork, saran wrap, some electrical wire & shaving cream and a broken ballpoint pen," Meryl added.

Ania and Milly couldn't wrap their head around this strange situation, even after they contemplated various scenarios involving these things. They turned out to be downright silly or shockingly kinky. The two shrugged their shoulders, their puzzlement clear on their faces.

"My neighbour once did the same to bandits with his wrench once. Beat the leader to an inch of his life. This guy was carted off to the special care section of the prison after his trial," Milly's offhand comment was not surprising. Bandits were always a scourge in the lawless wastes between cities.

"When some heavies came to my dad's previous workplace to shake it down, he shut them down. Brutally. Most of them ran with their tails between their legs. The rest were fucked pretty badly," Ania's anecdote was intriguing to the rest.

"How?" Vash's voice interjected into the conversation between the three women.

"Three fatalities, and five injuries. Two had severe concussions that sent them to long-term care. Another had a spinal cord injury. The rest had ruptured organs," The bounty hunter elaborated.

"Did these guys happen to be associated with the Chernosky Syndicate?" Milly's query was expected.

"Yes," From what Ania could recall of the aforementioned group, it was once one of the most powerful criminal groups in December. Their main speciality was human trafficking, be it forced labor or sex, although their side endeavours involved the sale of fentanyl-laced drugs to unsuspecting addicts. They had dominated the criminal underworld there until the group was decimated in a series of brutal raids by December police, supplemented by falcone adjuncts investigating the group's connections with the Augusta Mafia three years ago.

Speaking of fentanyl, it was commonly known to be one of humankind's most dangerous drugs. A form of synthesized opioid, it was restricted to the palliative treatment of dying cancer patients by law. But it didn't stop the criminal organizations of No Man's Land from capitalizing on its addictive potential. Illicit labs pumped out fentanyl pills by the pound and yet others like the Chernosky Syndicate deceived addicts and innocent victims into ingesting the drug by lacing other substances with it. The last crisis involving it had occurred well over ten years ago, and ever since safeguards had been brought in to restrict the sale of the components to produce fentanyl.

It still didn't stop the drug dealers. They begun importing them from other jurisdictions with far laxer laws than December, like Augusta and Old July. The customs officers in December were eventually authorized to seize any suspicious packages, although to do so required sealed hazmat suits.

"I got a signal! Finally, we can contact Bernadelli Insurance Society!" Milly's exclamation broke Ania out of her thoughts.

"Great! We just need to write up the insurance reports for the bus," Meryl reminded her partner.

"More likely that Takayama bastard shows up before you can do it," Ania scoffed.

A slash came out of nowhere. It broke one of the rocks around the group. Many of the people nearly panicked and ran out of the way of the falling chunk of stone.

"Speak of the devil and he appears," Vash cursed, "This is turning out to be a lousy night!"

Takayama smirked, as he twirled one of his wakizashi; His three henchmen held up a submachine gun, a cudgel and a rope, respectively. They approached the quarter, their eyes gleaming with barely concealed greed.

"Traveler-damnit!" Ania snarled, as she dodged a salvo of bullets from the sub-machine-toting thug. She swiftly took out her Tri-lock and began firing back. The other three saw this as a signal to take their guns out.

The quartet split up in various direction after Ania threw down another smoke grenade; They decided that this was the best option to deal with the group pursuing Vash.

* * *

Ocala inspected his submachine gun. It was an older model; he had gotten it from a going-out-of-business sale at a licensed arm dealer on the skid row of April. The fact that the police there threatened to arrest the owner on charges of aiding and abetting the Augusta Mafia didn't help. He had sold all his stock and fled the city. The best picks had already been sold when Ocala had come to that shop. He had been left with this lousy piece of shit.

He had used the gun to kill the school bully who tormented him because of his nose ever since childhood, though. The man was an unlikeable shit, and his employees hated him because he fraudulently withheld wages and was prone to lying about things. This was why Ocala was hired by the underlings to get rid of the man. They viewed him as a liability and they wanted to steer the company in a better direction.

Ocala had ambushed the man at his home and pumped the man full of holes. While the man lay dying on the floor, he stole the victim's gold watch and chain, before he desecrated the body by chopping it in pieces. He then put them in the city incinerator and covered up any remaining evidence before he fled into the wastelands.

He then become a mercenary. His only love was money; Ocala spent it on the women in Neon City and the gambling tables in New Las Vegas. Sometimes he would beat the women for giggles and shits. And he often picked fights with the winners of poker games and absconded with their hard-earned winnings.

However, Ocala had wound up under Takayama after a botched job had wound up putting a bounty on his head. It had occurred in Gallus, and his target was a drug wholesaler associated with a newly founded corporation. He had found his way into his target's house but was caught in the act of an attempt to kill the man. However, the falcones showed up and he was forced to skedaddle lest he end up in one of their interrogation rooms. The bounty on his head was worth five hundred thousand double dollars.

He looked over at the taller insurance woman following the Humanoid Typhoon. She seemed to be unaware of her surroundings as she sang an off-key rendition of some obscure Collapse song. The fact that she was skipping didn't help matters.

He aimed the submachine at her head and missed. He tried again but the woman weaved through the bullets while singing in that God-awful voice. The gunshots didn't even faze her.

Was that woman the most oblivious person on No Man's Land? Ocala fired, and every shot missed as the woman did a rather strange dance to evade them.

Click. Click. The counter on his gun slowly clicked down to zero, and it was in that moment that he realized that he had just wasted his ammunition. He had realized that he had forgotten to purchase more magazines the last time he had passed through a town.

Throwing away that accursed gun away, he geared up for a melee.

* * *

Milly watched as the man pursuing her circled her, cracking his fists. His greasy smirk reminded her too much of some of the seedier customers that had frequented the Bernadelli Insurance Society's services. Some of them had took out insurance policies on their relatives or companions and then hired mercenaries to go after them to collect the payouts from their deaths.

One particular individual she recalled was Peter Laurier. A greedy opportunist, he had taken out insurance policies on his wife and stepson. He then hired two men to go after them, but they were thwarted by another bounty hunter. When Laurier was arrested for the murders of his previous lovers, it turned out that he had done the same to collect the earning from the policies he had taken out on them. He was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes after a lengthy trial with extensive media coverage.

The man rushed her; She held up her arms to block his charge. He reared up for a right hook, but Milly caught his arm and pushed it away. She then readied a throat chop. Her grandpa had been a professional wrestler during his heyday and he had taught Milly a few of his techniques. The thrust she made knocked the thug back before he readied a haymaker punch. Grabbing the arm of her opponent she geared up for a judoka throw. The force of the action impacted him hard, and Milly followed up with a Thesz press. Using her weight to keep her opponent suppressed she pulled off a hard-right hook that gave the man a black eye. He replied with a vicious jab that she easily blocked, given the fact that the black eye impaired his vison.

"You motherfucking bitch," He swore. The man struggled to move under her presence, but Milly put his arms in a crucifix armbar.

"Why go after my friend?" Milly's query caught the man off-guard.

"Takayama wants the money," He answered, "He is still pissed at Bostov."

"Who's the individual?"

"A gun dealer. Sold sub-standard wares to him. He wants to hire elite mercenaries to go after the fool," the reply was surprising to Milly.

The fact that a salesman had the guts to sell defective wares angered Milly. She had lost count of how many times she had been hoodwinked by people like them. This was why she had checked out reviews of products from consumer magazines after the tenth time she bought a sub-standard product.

"Is that guy that hard to pin down?" She asked; the man nodded in reply.

* * *

Meryl dodged another swing from the cudgel-wielding man. He oddly reminded her of the sumo wrestlers in Goroshima, except that his head was bald and that he didn't have the noble mien of the wrestlers there.

The face was that of a lecher, pure and simple. The fact that there were rumours that this individual had a bounty on his head to the tune of six thousand double dollars didn't help. Meryl didn't want to know the details of how this bastard had earned his status, but she figured that he had sexually assaulted women in the past.

"Hey, you pretty little thing. Come here," He sneered as he took another swing of his weapon. Meryl darted again, firing her derringers as she moved away from the man.

"No frigging way!" She exclaimed. Taking a tumbling dodge she moved behind a rock for cover.

She thought about how the man could be overcome. The cudgel he wielded was heavy and unwieldy. An idea came to her head. Why not make it so that this lecher knocked himself out? It would take some very risky manoeuvres that only Ania Solezulam could pull off with skill and grace.

But she was confident that this plan would work. She pulled off a series of dodges, taunting the man to make him angry enough to perform rash actions. It worked a bit well as he charged toward her; Meryl took cover behind a rock. He swung his cudgel, at her but it hit the hoodoo at the top of it. The rock at the top broke off and tumbled on the man, pinning him down.

"Get this FUCKING rock off me!" He swore, flipping the finger at Meryl with his remaining hand.

"You're not going anywhere with that bounty on your head," she snapped back, arms crossed across her chest.

"You BITCH! Yo mamma-,"

Meryl kicked the man in the nuts. It was a well-known fact that yo mamma insults was an uncomplicated way to piss somebody off. Ania had once threateningly brandished her knife toward a man who had the audacity to insult her mother. It didn't help matters that this man had also angered other patrons by doing the same. Less to say, a bar brawl had broken out and much of the patrons of the tavern they were in had spilled out in the streets, punching and kicking this troublemaker. It was only through the intervention of the sheriff that this brawl was quelled.

From what Meryl had recalled, the man in question had suffered such severe injuries in the brawl that he was expected to pass at the hospital.

"Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth," Meryl spat out. She rarely cursed, but if she did it was usually out of extreme anger or frustration. The fatso was about to swear back, but he was quickly interrupted when a breathable gag tape was slapped on his face.

* * *

Ania reloaded her gun; The rope-wielding man had a greasy grin on his face. His scar looked horrific, too. She briefly wondered what kind of awful event he had undergone to receive that scar. Shaking her head clear of that thought, she returned her focus to the battle between them.

The man she was facing was Oscar Pine, a wanted escapee from No Man's Land's only prison. He had been convicted of first-degree murder for killing a love rival in front of the woman he wanted to marry. From the widely publicized trial at around the time of her birth, the facts were abundantly clear. The individual had been obsessed with a local young woman in his home district. His advances and gifts had been turned down, repeatedly. He had repeatedly stalked her dozen and dozens of times. Even a restraining order didn't stop Oscar Pine from acting out his aberrant behaviour.

However, when the young woman had announced her engagement to a local pharmacist, it was in that moment that Pine set his plans in place. He bought a gun on the black market in April and identified points where the couple could be found. He then ambushed them while they were strolling in the park near the shop the woman's fiancé worked at. The victim died instantly from a gunshot to the head. The woman fled, and he would had followed her if it wasn't for bystanders intervening.

Ania had assumed that Pine would have kidnapped the woman and forced her into matrimony with him if he had his way. It was a pathetic reality that girls and young women like her were forced to marry the captors who had violated them. The studies on the problem had shown that such marriages had higher rates of domestic and child abuse, and that the health costs of such marriages were extremely high. Many victims had died from obstetric fistulas and childbirth hemorrhaging while other weren't as healthy as they were supposed to be, all because their husbands viewed them as objects to be desired.

A few girls at her junior and senior high schools had fell victim to this practice, though. One girl she could recall was the popular junior high cheerleader May Dempster. She was strikingly attractive, almost Awoken-like in face and body. During summer vacation she had been abducted by one of her second cousins once removed and forced to marry him. Ania never saw or heard from her after that event.

Pine hurled his lariat at Ania; she dodged. Firing her gun, she managed to graze his arms with the bullets from her gun. She returned fire, only to miss. The man then geared up, as he twirled his rope.

"Here, here, you blue freak," He taunted, giving a obscene gesture with his other hand as he threw the loop of his rope. Ania rolled out of the way, pulling out her telescoping bo staff. She had realized that the key to beating Pine was it.

Pressing a button on it, the bo expanded to it full length of 4 feet. She begun twirling it with skill borne from years of practicing katas with it. As the rope headed toward her, she stopped the spinning, holding the long end out like a hanging peg. When the rope loop was caught around it, Pine pulled. It had the expected effect of tightening it around her bo.

Using it as leverage, Ania pulled the rope toward her, while Pine struggled with the same. Once he was close enough, she lashed out with a vicious blow to the stomach that took the wind out of the convict.

Pine tried to return a blow, but she deftly blocked the right hook he sent at her face. She then rendered him unconscious with a blow from her bo.

* * *

Takayama Isshin had his eyes on the sixty billion double dollars bounty on Vash the Stampede's head, and with good reason. Three years ago, he had been lied to by one Anatoly Padrevich Bostov. The individual in question was an arms dealer of ill-repute in the criminal underworld. He had sold defective and sabotaged weapons to various parties all over No Man's Land, and always disappeared before the aggrieved parties could take out their anger on him.

Takayama was no exception. He had been hoodwinked by Bostov in buying guns, all which had been sabotaged with a hidden explosive. When his previous group of henchmen had fired them while trying to raid Tonim Town for supplies and young women, the weapons had blown up. Their respective wielders had been killed instantly. When Takayama had found out, he vowed to hunt Bostov to the ends of No Man's Land, even if it meant dying.

Although at first he had tried to live up to that vow, he realized that it was nearly impossible. It wasn't until he heard about the Brotherhood of the Hawk, a band of elite mercenaries that Takayama had found the solution to his woes. But another problem arose. The group was quite expensive; their services were worth up to twelve billion double dollars for an assassination of this kind. And political assassinations involving them ballooned the original cost up to well over seventy billion double dollars.

In Lewiston Town, Takayama had heard of the Humanoid Typhoon and his sixty billion double dollars bounty. He decided that taking out the fugitive would provide him with the necessary money to hire the Brotherhood of the Hawk.

The subject in question clenched his gun. He had an annoyed expression on his face.

"I'm getting tired of this shit," He muttered.

Takayama took out his dual wakizashi, a greasy smirk on his face. Moving through a series of fluid motions with his swords, he prepared to strike with them. Vash dodged, firing back with skills born out of Plant origins. He fired at Takayama, while circling around the swordsman.

Takayama geared up for another slash, but Vash rolled under the attack; he then disarmed his left arm with a precise shot that shattered his forearm.

The red-clad gunslinger then zig-zagged through Takayama's strike, while gunfire came from another direction. The bullets disabled Takayama's legs, and he dropped down with a cry.

"You BITCH!" He cried as Ania took out her rope and tied him up with it. Behind her, Milly dragged Ocala behind her; like Takayama he was restrained, but with plastic restraining locks.

The thugs were eventually lined up in front of the trio. They all struggled to get out of their restraints, swearing and insulting Milly, Ania and Vash.

"Oberon Bount, I am aware of your 900,000 double dollar bounty for rape," Ania spat out, "The fact that you had the gall to sexually violate a fifteen-year-old girl in Octovern doesn't sit well with me."

"And I've heard rumours that the authorities were planning to line up a dangerous offender hearing on your behaviour." Meryl pointed out.

Bount gulped, he didn't want to go to No Man's Land's only prison for life. He had been locked up on various offences there over the course of his adult life, beginning when he had molested a ten-year-old girl at age 22. His behaviour had escalated rapidly the older he had gotten with various rapes of women and girls that had become more violent with every iteration. It had ended when he had been arrested for the act Ania had mentioned.

During his sentencing hearing, Bount had managed to remove the GPS band from his ankle and fled into the wastelands of No Man's Land as he had feared the dangerous offender designation and what it really meant for his future.

"Oscar Pine, you are a depiscable piece of scum!" Milly's face had an expression of distaste," The fact that you were obsessed with a pretty girl didn't excuse your stalking."

"Not to mention that there's allegations of your cruelty to women," Ania turned to Pine, "There's a reason why my father views your ilk as scum. He said they don't respect and cherish women as their equals, and when they treat females as sex objects it says a lot about their character."

"You're a worthless slut," Pine snapped back at Ania.

Ania put one of her knife to his throat, her face in a snarl.

"Do you call women like that? While forcing them to do things they don't want to do?"

Pine didn't say a word.

"Your behavior is that of a monster, pure and simple," Vash threw his observations into the fray.

"Takayama wants the money. He wants to off Bostov," Ocala admitted.

"Who is this individual exactly?" Ania's question caught the big-nosed man off guard.

"A lying scumbag of an arms dealer," Takayama interjected, "Bostov always mispresents his guns as high-quality and state-of-the-art when they are anything but that. Often sabotages some of the guns he sells. I bought some of his wares, myself."

"And he has killed others with his sabotaged guns before," Ocala added, "Some of them were innocent men and women."

Ania swore under her breath. This was a new one. She had seen many things of the criminal underbelly during her tenure as a bounty hunter; if what Takayama and Ocala was saying turned out to be true, this individual was possibly the most hated person in the criminal underworld. And with good reason. She could bet good money on the chances that there was a contract with Bostov's name floating somewhere there.

Vash had seen similar things during his journeys. No matter how much he despised people like Bostov, for each one he had turned over to the authorities, a new one inevitably took the place of the previous. And it was unsurprising to him that people like him were often the victims of contract killings on behalf of the criminal gangs that inhabited the underbelly of the various cities on No Man's Land. The last time such a thing had happened, Bandino D'Anata, a gun dealer from New July had been murdered and his chopped-up body had been sent to various associates and family members, courtesy of one Isshin Higuchi. It was shocking to the general populace, but not to the falcones and other police forces investigating his activities.

"The Traveler help us all," Ania murmured. What the fuck, indeed.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Winding Deserts**

 **Chapter 9**

 _ **An abandoned town, No Man's Land**_

"I'm parched," Milly Thompson whined for the umpteenth time. The journey toward the next town had been draining, less to say. The deserts of No Man's Land were a harsh place indeed, and at times even Ania Solezulam had admitted that she was hankering for a glass of water too.

It was sadly, unsurprising since No Man's Land saw little terraforming ever since the destruction of the requisite facilities in the Big Fall. Ania had thought an AI like her father's own floating flower would have been a large help in determining optimal and suboptimal scenarios and coming up with real, concrete solutions to the lack of food and water on the forsaken world. But however, she was a bounty hunter, not a scientist. For crying out loud, Ania found labs and libraries too boring; the thing she enjoyed was travelling and exploring new, unknown places. She always felt confined in classrooms at her schools.

And there were the detentions. Ania _absolutely_ hated them. She had repeatedly skipped out on them, often heading straight to Trumbeak's Arcade. Unfortunately, her parents had often caught her entering that piece of heaven on No Man's Land. She had lost count of how many times they had dragged her away from some video game console or pinball machine just as she was getting started on it. It was super embarrassing for a teen to have parents showing up without any warning.

The Awoken gunslinger was broken out of her thoughts as Meryl Stryfe knocked on the doors of the abandoned mansion they had found. Vash was as usual, goofing around with his rendition of the Monty Python walks.

"Is anybody there?" Milly spoke into an intercom on the side of the door. Ania reached for the handle. pushing it, she noticed it gave way. The doors were unlocked. The quartet walked into the foyer.

"So much dust!" Milly's sneeze was quite loud.

"Bless you," The other three murmured in reply. This custom had originated from the Black Plague of ancient Earth, one of the earliest instances of a pandemic. It had originated from the bacterium _yersinia pestis_ which had lurked in Oriental rat flies. The carrier species in question had hitched rides on rats lurking among shipments on the Silk Road. Millions of people died in the outbreaks that had followed with respiratory forms being some of the most virulent. This was where this had originated, as sneezing was an obvious symptom of this type of disease.

"Wow…," Meryl looked around the place. The foyer was quite grand, with an unused crystal chandelier hanging from the domed ceiling. The dome had an elaborate ceiling medallion with acanthus and olive leaves circling around it. The walls of the foyer were wallpapered in a cream, scarlet and brown striped pattern. The floor was marble tile that had obviously been quarried kilometres away from wherever this house was. The matching carpeting that covered the grand staircase was made of high-quality material.

There were portraits alongside the side of the walls. They portrayed idealized versions of various family members. One was of a particularly buxom woman in a brown Victorian-style dress. Another depicted a man with a large moustache that dwarfed his face. A third portrayed a sad-looking young woman in a wedding dress. What creeped Milly and Meryl out about this picture was that she was holding a bloody knife.

"What the hell?" The insurance agents' expression was pale as they stared at the picture.

"That was my second cousin once removed," an unfamiliar voice entered the conversation, "She killed her bridegroom at the altar. Her parents forced her to marry a man she hated. Caused quite the uproar in her circle back then. The judge granted her leniency, since it was a well-known suspicion that the man had murdered several of his previous wives."

"Who the fuck are you?" That insolent reply of course, had to come straight from Ania's mouth.

"The name's Cliff Schezar," The gaunt-looking man that emerged had a large nose and beady brown eyes. His moustache was not unlike the one presented on the picture of the man, although it was more proportional.

A woman with blonde hair in a simple style accompanied him.

"My name's Marianne Aura Cayzen," The woman explained herself, "I'm the granddaughter of the director of the Stantal Federal Bureau."

"Five days ago, someone tried to break in the house," Cliff explained, "I've been looking for a bodyguard ever since.

The man gestured to a rough draft for an advertisement for a bodyguard.

 _Bodyguard wanted_

 _-Good Shooter like Vash the Stampede_

 _-Pay hours: Five hundred double dollars_

 _-3 hours with nap_

 _-Room and board_

 _-Bullets for weapon provided_

 _-Special bonus_

 _-Pets ok_

Ania spat out the water she was drinking when she saw the details. Meryl had an irritated expression on her face.

"Why did you think it was a good idea to REFERENCE HIM!" Her head had magically expanded to a ginormous size, complete with the feared White Eyes of Rage. The way Vash, Ania and Milly cowered under her anger was comical, considering the situation they were in.

Marianne sweatdropped at the scene, as it reminded how childish the visiting quartet really could be at times. Cliff was trying to calm Meryl down.

"Not that it matters anyways," Milly's sheepish reply rang out as she scratched her head nervously.

"She's a guest and she need protection," Cliff replied.

* * *

 _ **Valerian District, December**_

" _You. Are. Not. Going. Ahead. With. That!"_

" _I'm doing it. And for the good-,"_

 _Gunshots_

" _That was for Amelia. And Eric,"_

The television was clicked off, as the TV show episode inched ever closer to its conclusion.

"There's been news that Alghrabi's Express was attacked by bandits again," Larymissa Solezulam pointed out, holding up a newspaper. On the front page was a picture of the bus. It seemed to have it top half sliced off.

"Did Vash the Stampede happen to be on that bus?" Cegrim Von could only figure out one possibility for this event. He could recall meeting this individual when Ania was two and a half years old. The fact that she had wandered away from her parents would had made it worse if not for the Humanoid Typhoon's intervention. The fact that her presence was so much like his own wasn't lost upon the Warlock; where normal people ranged from candle flickers to torch flames when he sensed them with his supernatural senses, she was a blazing sun. This had made it easier for him to locate Ania whenever she strayed. Not that it had helped with her tendencies, though.

"Yes. Eyewitnesses accounts said that Vash was one of the passengers, along with Ania," Larymissa confirmed, "And that Oberon Bount, Oscar Pine and Ocala was turned into for $$900,000, $$950,000, and $$500,000, respectively. Takayama Isshin was arrested on outstanding charges that reach back ten years ago."

"These were related to attempted murder and conspiracy charges involving one Wilhelm Panzer, though," Echo chimed with her insights, "Some witnesses said that Panzer owed Takayama money, while others said it was a long-standing dispute over drug distribution."

"More likely it's both. The last time somebody was shot in our neighbourhood, it involved both elements," Cegrim's observation made sense. He could recall the individual in question; His name was Ernie "Erry" Padapakis. The subject was a real nasty piece of work. There had been many times the man had threatened businesses who refused to pay protection money. And at other times he had hired guns to go after druggies who owed money to him.

But it all changed when the subject's body was found in an enclosed alleyway. After extensive police investigation it turned out he had tangled with the Chernosky Syndicate over his ever-mounting debts and the fact that he wanted a bigger share of the profits. The case was currently cold, as witnesses to the crime were uncooperative.

It had come as no surprise to the Warlock, though. When one immersed him/herself in the criminal underbelly, the chances got higher that the person in question would die in a violent manner. And most people associated there were uncooperative because if they snitched, they ended up dead much quicker.

"That was why I warned Ania to stay away from bounty hunting," His wife's voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"And as usual, she didn't listen," Cegrim sighed, "She is a real handful."

* * *

Marianne led Ania down the hallway; As the bounty hunter looked around, she could see expensive paintings hung every second meter. Many of them were of pastoral scenes, while other depicted various scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. The walls had mahogany wainscoting, while the upper walls were painted a cheery mustard yellow.

Cast iron ceiling mounted lights lit the way through the corridor; the duo passed past doors occasionally. Some of them had nameplates that had long since faded from lack of upkeep. And others had them removed completely, leaving behind holes on the doors.

"This is something I've been keeping to myself," The blonde woman turned toward Ania, "It's about my sister-in-law."

"W-What!?" Ania blurted out in shock.

"She's a Reader. She also has visions too," Marianne's explanation was confusing.

"Of what?"

"Of a great white orb hovering above a city. And of terrifying bug-people that does nothing but cut down people. It didn't matter, men, women or children. They all died, horribly. She also saw visions of defenders raised by the orb to stop these monsters that salivate for the blood of the innocent.

Others were of rhino-like conquerors who enslave lesser species. Another showed a once-proud people, cast down by the orb because of their hubris. And a third was of time-threading robots, who will stop at nothing to alter reality to fit their visions.

And the most terrifying to her, was the taken ones. Shambling shadow of these peoples, their minds broken by foul energies," Marianne shuddered at that last one.

"But why me?" Ania's muddled reply punctuated the silence.

"Most people would find these kinds of thing too far-fetched. But something tells me that I can trust you with these secrets," She reflected.

"How many years have you been keeping this under wraps?"

"Seven long, arduous years," The answer was surprising.

Ania mulled over the details. They sounded terrifying, especially the blood-lusting monsters. But the visions that Marianne had explained in detail brought up one word up in Ania's mind.

Darkness. She didn't understand why she had connected that word to the visions, but it fit all too well. The word brought up images of tenebrous, formless things that was the antithesis of all life in general. It crept up on the unaware, devoured them and left ruins in its wake.

* * *

"Do you remember the time we had to assess the tavern that blew up in Macca City? The one with the sabotaged gas line?" Milly's question shook Meryl out of her thoughts as she typed up insurance assessments on the damaged bus that the quartet was on.

"Yes, it occurred last Christmas," she answered, "I recall the time we were called up to deal with the destruction of the SNDS _Red Scarf_."

"That sandsteamer was bombed big time," Milly reminisced, "There were injuries, but no deaths. The vessel was totalled."

"And the one about the mayor of Scuttlestin's manor? It was blown up in a turf war between two warring bands of thugs."

"Yeah, these fools were beset on all sides by specialists from the United Militia after the event," Milly replied, "Remember Harmony's Saloon? In Portland?"

"Yes. It was torched by the owner's jealous ex," Meryl nodded.

A small meow came from Milly's bed. Kuroneko-sama was nestled on it, having apparently snuck into the room. Milly laughed as she picked up the cat, scratching her behind the ears. Kuroneko-sama let out purrs while under the taller woman's ministrations.

"I recall one time our boss showed us that he and alcohol definitely don't mix well," She was lost in remembrance. Meryl shuddered, that one was just as bad as the time her classmate Alexander Garibaldi danced the night away naked after a night of hard drinking.

"Not to mention Greg Madoff stole all the Christmas presents at that party," her reply flummoxed Milly.

"M-Madoff, really!?" Milly sputtered, "That's an appropriate name for a thief,"

"My family and I once had a neighbour called Dr. Foot. He was a podiatrist," Ania's voice chimed in as she entered the room.

"And I knew one guy who broke his jaw. His surname was Malak, which is the Arabic term for jaw," Meryl added.

"I once met a man called Mr. Pitt. Turns out he excavates holes for a living," Vash had also found the trio.

"Let's not mention the renowned cardiologist Dr. Kokoro Heart," Milly added.

"And the meteorologist Dr. Wyndham Storm," Ania recalled.

The quartet burst into laughter.

"T-that was hilarious," Vash said between fits of laughter, "Some names are apt enough that it qualifies as it own category of humor."

"Some people say that puns are better, but it's the lowest form of humor," Meryl replied.

* * *

 **The Tower**

Barin-23 looked over the bobbleheads he had eagerly collected ever since his revival. The Defender titan had been found clutching one of them in the ruins of a welding shop in Old Las Vegas. He didn't know why he had retained that obsession, but he had suspicions it was a trait that had carried over from his previous life.

" _Pinche pendojo_ ," Ricardo Melendez muttered under his breath. The Hispanic Warlock was having a very bad day. His usual clumsiness had been turned up to ten today. He had tripped and stumbled all through the missions he had been given, and other people ridiculed him as he went about his business.

"There, Stretch, there,"

"It wasn't my fault I blew my _pinche_ ass up with my own Nova Bomb!" he exclaimed, "And don't call me that again!"

"Yeah, that damn Hunter was being obnoxious," Barin's reply mollified the Human. He had been privy to Ricardo's clumsiness ever since they were both newborn guardians assigned to the same fireteam.

"And your constant breaking of things certainly doesn't help matters," Barin's ghost, Fluffy popped up. The nodes of its shell moved up and down as it acted out a mimicry of a sigh.

"Remember when you broke that package you were delivering to Lakshimi-2?" Ricardo's question made Barin's yellow-shelled face do the mechanical equivalent of blushing. That really was embarrassing, even by Titan standards. It was only upstaged by Fiso and Kovj's dalliance a few years ago. He had occasionally babysat their son while his mother had been sent on strikes.

Ricardo fidgeted with the rosary that his Ghost, Lucio, had found him with. He had been found in the remains of a Roman Catholic seminary along the Sinaloa Coast. Although he couldn't recall much of his previous life, he had assumed that he had been studying to become a Roman Catholic priest.

He could recall snickering at Barin's choice of name for his Ghost. According to the male Exo, the first thing that had came to the Titan's mind was a name on a pet tag; he had difficulty thinking of names at first. When fellow Guardians had found out, there were gales of laughter all around the Tower.

But even then, Ricardo's clumsiness had resulted in some very awkward situations of his own. Like the time he had crashed into Ikora's desk as a newborn, much to the dismay of the dark-skinned woman. This had drawn stares from the other Guardians under her tutelage. The way his face had turned beet red had been memorialized in several uncomfortable photos that were still being passed through the Tower, with even the Titan orders getting onto the fun of mocking them.

Barin-23 and him had been among the Guardians briefed about the missing colony shops and the Speaker's vision about the six missing Guardians. They had been shocked at the initial revelation that there were possible colonies that had potentially survived the Collapse. The fact that even now, the Titan Vanguard was still processing the information that the Speaker gave the trio gave the Hispanic warlock some thought.

He could sympathize with Zavala, as the logistics of such a journey to a far-away world were mammoth. If the male Awoken had his way, the resources would have been better spent guarding and fortifying the City. There were things that needed to be brought abroad the ship that the Vanguard had requisitioned from Dead Orbit. Food, water, ammunition, weapons, and so on. And from what he had briefly overheard from the Vanguard during their meetings, they had begun working on instructional materials for the Guardians on that lost colony.

Ricardo could only hope and pray that it turned out for the best.

* * *

Hachiyama Taeko laid out the paper with the logo on it. Her intuition told her it was something important, and that it was related to her previous life. Yet when she stared at it, it didn't bring any memories back. The shape of the logo was one clue. It was a taegeuk, although the colors were decidedly non-traditional. Maybe this hinted at Korean origins? And the choice of rust red, teal green and silver indicated a forward-thinking mindset, while the black was representative of power and stability? And the diamond shape was elongated, compared to Rasputin's square-diamond sigil, which indicated that this group may had split off Clovis Bray's Warmind project some time before the Collapse.

Scribbling down the observations she had gleaned from this image in her journal, she turned to the Vignere cipher. Trying the various code names she had written down, each one had failed to solve the cipher. They often produced meaningless strings of letters. Looking back to H_R_MI_, she realized it was misspelled. Maybe the person was in such a rush to flee that s/he had forget to spell the code word correctly.

Something came to her thoughts. Taeko had been given a harmonica by Cam Atepa two Dawnings ago. It was during that time she was trying to access the Sunsinger subclass; It hadn't bore any fruit, though. Picking it up she blew a little tune on the musical instrument. She recalled that one of her favorite tunes brought back memories of playing the instrument on the balcony of a Golden Age Osaka apartment alongside a relative, although the initial resurrection had erased any remembrance of names from her past life.

One word came to her mind. Harmony. It was such an abstract concept to wrap her head around. Maybe the reason Taeko was so well attuned to the Void was that her personality mirrored the calm of That Which Lies Beneath the Universe. Some Warlocks had cheerful and passionate personalities; It meshed well with the Beginning and the End. Others were in perpetual motion, which symbolized their connection with the Binder of That All Is.

'What would happen if I changed the ending of harmony to harmonia?' She wondered. Writing down the modified word, she tried to solve the cipher using it as a guide. It worked too well, confirming her suspicions that it was the code word.

 _We must protect Project HARMONIA. This is our last hope. The monsters lurk in the shadows and they thirst for our blood. The Plants are to be hidden away. Only the worthy will be able to locate them._

 _The data on Project HARMONIA is to be hidden in ICELION. Only when Project SEEDS's success have been established that we will proceed with protocol SWIFT._

 _Protocol SWI-_

Taeko read over the deciphered message. The monsters were obviously the Darkness. But another mystery unfolded. What were the Plants, and their relation to ICELION? And what did Protocol SWIFT entail, anyways?

* * *

 _ **No Man's Land**_

The dining room had an ambience of merriment. Vash was telling jokes to Meryl and Milly, while Ania was strangely quiet. Her dish was partially eaten.

"What's wrong?" Milly asked as she sipped at her tea.

"Marianne told me things about her sister-in-law. She said that the subject was a Reader and that she has visions," Ania replied.

"I've heard stuff about them, and a lecture I once attended about them said that visions among Readers are extremely rare. The statistics says that one in 150,000 have this power. Often, these often end up driving the recipients insane," Milly noted as she tapped her fork on the table.

"I once read some old book called Lirael and one of the bloodlines detailed in that story had future sight. Apparently the eldest Clayr must retire to dreaming rooms because their sense of time and causality has become so incoherent that they cannot function normally, from what I've read there," Meryl's observation caught the two off-guard.

"Make sense, though. Seeing into the future could mess up any sense of timing. The Mad Oracle trope still has longevity because of that fact," Ania thought out loud.

"Some rumours circling through high society said that the late soap opera actress Melinda Taylor had visions in her youth," Cliff interjected into the conversation, "They said she babbled on about a war between light and dark. She once said that six must awaken to the reality of the looming danger and rise to become the defenders they were supposed to be. I still don't believe a word about these rumours. They're all hearsay."

"I still don't believe some of what Marianne said, though. It's too far-fetched for my taste," Ania snapped back, "It sounds like it came out of a badly written video game."

"That war between the light and the dark sound like a rewrite of Babylon 5 to me," Milly snorted. Ania knew what she was referring to. That series was an ancient tv series that was slavishly watched by a few, including her nerd of a classmate Peter Werner. The remake of the series was universally panned by hundred of newspapers because the director decided to hire a team of writers with absolutely no experience. The first three episodes aired before it was unplugged by the network for poor ratings.

She preferred Firefly over that crap. It had interesting storylines and a ragtag bunch of misfits she could get behind. The remake of the series had sustained extremely high ratings, both for the themes it espoused and the rich lore behind it. Her favorite character happened to be Zoe Washbourne for the kickassery the woman had exemplified. Although Hoban Washbourne came in a close second, with his loquaciousness. Some of the best lines there came straight from his mouth.

"Speaking of Taylor, there are rumours that she was once a high-class escort in April before she was discovered," Vash added.

"And the starlet died of a fentanyl overdose at age 28," Meryl's observation made the rest shudder. _That drug_ was a plague upon mankind. The fact that an actress's career was cut short as she was attaining greater things reminded the quartet of how pervasive addiction was among Crewlin's elite. It was not unlike the problems in Hollywood pre-Collapse; during that era, tabloids circulated stories about stars suffering from substance use disorders.

"That event occurred over thirty years ago," Cliff pointed out, "Ever since, there has been 17 more overdose-caused deaths of performers in Crewlin."

* * *

The hope chest had lain abandoned in the corner of the attic for years. The previous owner's daughter had made the garments in preparation of a life in wedded bliss, but after the Augusta Mafia had put a hit out on her fiancé he had fled the city. At some point he had died in the wastelands of starvation. The woman held out hope of seeing her one and only true love, but as the years passed, the chances dimmed. She committed suicide after sheriffs came to her to deliver the bad news.

This story, of course was Cliff Schezar's aunt's. After this event, his grandfather had wasted away from despair. His wife had died in childbirth with his youngest aunt fifteen years prior to the actual suicide. The fact that the criminal organization had the gall to hire killers to go after a government-sanctioned witness had further rubbed salt in the wound.

It was little wonder his father despised the Mafia just as much as the people of Augusta did. The backstabbing, the lies and the odiousness that permeated the underworld of the city often wore out even the most experienced criminals. The murders of Mario Brachato and Peter Lucchese had sent some of these veterans scurrying to other cities and it repeated every time a prominent criminal leader was murdered. Some of them were ruthlessly hounded to their deaths by hateful rivals bent upon revenge.

Cliff had inherited the manor he currently inhabited nearly 30 years ago after his grandfather passed away. He had found the schematics for a Plant machine in the office the man once used. He had built the device in the basement using the instructions his grandfather had written down.

The valuable gold and silver deposits in the nearby mine had run out a little over forty years ago, and the unnamed town's populace had rapidly dwindled as families and individuals left the place to seek better opportunities somewhere. Some had moved back to Valdoor, while others just wandered aimlessly with the intention to find any job that paid good money. The state of the buildings was pathetic as well; they had begun to crumble from lack of maintenance. Because of this Cliff was forced to sell water the Plants produced to travellers to pay for the cost of maintaining his mansion.

He had briefly contemplated abandoning the house and moving to April, but nostalgia and his grandfather's will had stranded him here.

The costs over the years had drained the accounts of the once-wealthy Schezar family, though. And the fact that selling water didn't put a dent in them didn't help matters much. It was perhaps time to look at other ways to pay the bills.

He clicked his shotgun.

* * *

 **The Tower**

The playground in the Harmington district was a popular place for families and children of all ages. There were picnic tables, trails for hikers and a large playstructure that was extremely popular with children of all ages. It was also close to the Tower, which was a huge plus for Sione Fiso and his tina. Ever since he was a baby she had brought him there regularly, so he could play and socialize with other children his age.

He was embarrassed by the fact that his tina was a Guardian; the fact that such offspring were rare wasn't lost upon him. She had been fortunate in that her pregnancy was discovered before she could go out on a particularly dangerous mission. She had been reassigned to patrols on the Wall because of this event, and it was something the Firebreak titan had reluctantly accepted. From what little Sione could recall, there were a few other female Guardians that had similar events and they understood the necessity of this change.

He hated the attention the other kids paid to him. His mixed heritage made him stand out like a sore thumb among the small Awoken community in the City, and he was much more used to human food than the standard fare among them. Another aspect of this admixture meant that he was much more blunt than the Awoken children. Where they claimed their father was the howling dark and their mother the starlight, Sione said his tina was from Earth and his tama the Reef. It was partly truth in some form; the fact was that many earthborn Awoken were descended from the few who left the lawless Reef regions in search for safety and security. His father was no exception. From what little he had heard from his Awoken grandparents in the City, they had moved here during the beginning of the City age. Baruch Kovj had died as a civilian during the Battle of Twilight Gap and was revived by a Ghost nearly 103 years later as a Titan.

"Hey!"

Sione's train of thought was interrupted by Astrid's familiar voice. She was a child guardian, having been revived in the Cosmodrome Dead Zone behind an abandoned trailer. She was a wild ten-year-old with a French braid that ran across the top of her head and trailing to her mid-back. Her dirty blonde hair indicated that her ancestors had came from Eastern Europe. She had the bold and reckless demeanour that many Titans bore, including his mommy.

He preferred her company over the other Astrid. That one was a classmate who was obsessed with him to the point it was uncomfortable. Her surname was Bellini, and she came from a middle-class background. Her parents worked as technicians in the Tower, calibrating and re-calibrating systems as needed.

"I got some candy! And some toys from the gashapon store down the street!," The girl skipped over to him, "These are for you, Sione."

Sione inspected the three capsules he was given. Two were green, which indicated common-tier items, while the teal one held rarer items in it. He was about to open them when something suddenly hovered around his head, trying to get his attention. He tried to swat the object away only for it to dodge his clumsy attempts.

"The Traveller sent me to you. I'm your Ghost!," He instantly recognized the floating thing. His tina's Ghost had been present at his birth and he had grown used to his presence from infancy onward. The thing was much smaller than other ghosts; It was the size of the larger bouncy balls from the vending machines that were sold at the grocery store near the dorm where Sione lived with his mother. He figured that it was a younger Ghost, as it still had some growing to do.

"W-Why would you pick me?" His question was quickly answered as the mini-ghost hovered above his outstretched hand.

"Because you're my Guardian!" The reply was not surprising. Sione's prescient dreams that he had for the last few weeks only highlighted his importance in the eyes of the Speaker and the guardians assigned to Taskforce VOYAGER.

"You're just like me now!" Astrid let out a joyful whoop. It had been lonely being the only child Guardian in the city, and her mentor, Celeste Estain had been sent on longer and longer missions. Like Astrid, she had been revived as a preteen. A Titan, Claney Beamard had been present at her resurrection.

Sione could bet good money on the chances that the duo had been brother and sister in their old lives. They certainly looked similar, with bright red hair, freckled face and pale skin. Even then he would never make them mad with his crazy claims, though.

"Have you heard people talking about the latest remake of Voltron?" He asked. He had been bugging his tina to bring him to the movies. Word of mouth said that it was good, and Sione anticipated eagerly the day tina would buy tickets for the two of them at the cinema.

"I wanted to go too, but Celeste got called up on some scouting mission again," Astrid's reply was unsurprising.

"The new incarnation of Shiro is going to be awesome!" Sione was gushing. Astrid could have swore that he was just as starry-eyed as any young boy watching shounen anime was supposed to be. She liked Voltron, too; the story of an evil empire conquering the universe and a rag-tag team of misfits resisting them was a tale as old as time itself. She could almost feel a hankering to watch the old Star Wars movies again.

Their thoughts were interrupted when a representative of the Titan order stepped up to the duo.

"Sione Fiso, we have been waiting for the day you would be called upon," The man said.

"Y-You know about t-that little incident at my s-school!?" Sione squeaked. He could recall the time when he had become angry at an older boy who was beating up a younger, smaller classmate. He had lashed out, punching and kicking the unfortunate boy. The action served to knock him down on and Sione had leapt upon him. As he begun punching the boy there were small tendrils of Arc energies around his fists. But Sione didn't care, he was so focused on giving the bully a good punchdown. His righteous fury at seeing a bully hurting someone blinded him to that small detail.

He could recall strong arms pulling him off the boy he would have killed with his small fists. The stern, but disappointed tone of the experienced Titan as the man restrained Sione, while he yelled "LEMME AT HIM!" The visit with the principal at his school, while Tina had been quickly summoned from a mission briefing to deal with this problem. The lengthy discussion about to do with his burgeoning new powers.

Sione could recall the Titan Vanguard Zavala's stern countenance as Tina talked with him for a long time about what happened. After that the Awoken man had signed some papers that were related to the incident.

"We are moving you to the Tower school, Sione. Your discovery of your powers makes you a risk to others at your old school. At your new school, there are teachers who will teach you to control them," He had spoken.

Sione had protested the move at first, because he wanted to stay with his old school friends. But Zavala's stern glare had shut him up immediately.

* * *

 _ **Foreign Language Glossary**_

 **Tina** \- Samoan word for mother. This I'm clarifying because Sione is part Samoan.

 **Tama-** Samoan word for father.

 **Kakiye** \- Russian for What.

 **Kuso** \- Japanese for damn or troublesome.

 **Ti durak** \- Russian for fucking moron

 **Yopstel-mopstel** \- Goddamnit in Russian.

* * *

Credits for Claney Beamard and Celeste Estain goes to jsm1978. Thanks to DaydreamerB.A. for Astrid.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 9**

 _ **Unamed Ghost Town, No Man's Land**_

"Hey, look at the periwinkle horses! Do you see them?" Milly Thompson was talking in her sleep again. Ania Solezulam rolled her eyes as she looked over at the tape recorder that she had purchased from a rummage sale at a house that was in the process of being sold after the last of the owners had passed away. It had been turned on a few hours ago.

"Really?" She was skeptical but decided to play along.

"They're dancing to Mozart! Again!" This was a gem of an answer. She swore that with this line, there was a chance of winning one of these contests she had had told Vash really existed. Ania had dialed through the frequencies on the local radio to find shows that held such contests involving sleep-talking people and found a few that was ongoing. The bounty hunter had laughed so hard as she listened to the people on these programs narrate out some of the entries that were sent. Occasionally they would broadcast tape soundtracks like the one she was making; these were funnier because they were footage of real people's voices.

But Ania knew that Meryl Stryfe found things like it to be irritating; she had lost count of how many times the woman had took out her earplugs whenever the trio of females had to share the same room. But nevertheless, it was worth the time to collect the records of Milly's sleeptalking.

Meryl stirred awake. Muttering curses under her breath, she wandered to the bathroom door. Ania had assumed that the woman needed to pee, and badly enough. There were times that Ania had overheard Meryl muttering idle threats toward Milly out of sheer frustration with her ditzy assistant's antics. One time the taller woman had bumped into a lamppost in Pablo's Gauntlet while she was totally spaced out. It had ended up denting the thing a bit. The bounty hunter had assumed that Milly had a lot of upper body strength, a necessity for lugging her giant stungun.

' _At least she has Meryl to keep her on track,'_ Ania thought. Standing up from her bed, she headed for the bathroom to grab a glass of water.

"Good morning, Ania," The smaller brunette muttered as she took a toothbrush from her toiletry bag and squeezed some toothpaste on it.

"I swear that some of the things Milly says in her sleep are just as bizarre as _Liddell's Bizzaro Dreamscape_ ," Ania sighed. Meryl shuddered at that one. That movie was one of No Man's Land's worst-reviewed. The professional critics blasted the incoherent storyline, the amateurish directing and the costuming choices. To make it worse, the small studio who had produced the movie was due to go out of business later that year and this movie was their last attempt at a blockbuster.

"Not to mention that whoever ever conceived the idea of this atrocious movie deserves to be fired," Meryl snorted, "The creepy hand puppets? No way would I dare touch them!"

"And some of the scenes looked like it was written on a drunken night," Ania though out loud, "If there's one thing that stand out in my mind is that there were rumours that the director had alcoholism, which certainly explain why so many scenes were so disjointed."

"There are also allegations that someone spiked the guy's alcohol with magic mushrooms. It really cemented the psychedelic tone though," Meryl's observation made sense.

"M-m-magic mushrooms!?," Ania burst out laughing, "I can't believe somebody actually had the idea to bring them aboard!"

"It was maybe one of the scientists' pet projects, though," Milly interjected into the conservation the duo was having, "Probably a study on how hallucinogenic substances could be modified by lengthy space travel."

Meryl and Ania's reaction to this unexpected observation was quite comical. Meryl just fell on the floor, her limbs in a tangled mess above her while Ania did a gigantic jaw drop, complete with tongue rolling out of her mouth like carpet. After they had recovered from the initial shock, there was a flash of the dreaded White Eyes of Rage from Meryl.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR!?" Milly cowered comically under the wrathful gaze of her partner, while Ania sweatdropped at the scene.

' _Oh, great. More useless research_ ,' Ania thought as she pondered Milly's observation. It was far-fetched, but it still made sense in that context. No wonder her father was frustrated with the Council of Technological Research for granting scientists money for projects of dubious value. One particular project focused on breeding the aforementioned mushrooms to get stronger psychoactive properties. It obviously didn't bear fruit as these enhanced fungi required very specific conditions that were only found on the world of humanity's birth. Another grant funded the research of mechanical airborne drones, but the problem was that the harsh sandstorms of No Man's Land had the capability to rapidly wear down the propellers and wings of airborne vessels; as a result, these drones were virtually useless in the wastelands.

Her stomach gave out a loud rumble; it was in this moment that the blue-skinned gunslinger realized that she was ravenously hungry. Both Milly and Meryl sweatdropped at this noise; they had expected this from Vash the Stampede, but not from Ania.

* * *

Ania and Vash's plates were equally filled with food to outlandish levels. While the red-clad gunslinger inhaled his grub at a pace that would make people stare at him as if he was crazy, Ania was very boorish in her approach, shoveling every piece in her mouth and chewing with her mouth open. It had been a continued source of embarrassment for Meryl as her unrefined behaviour often rubbed on other people's nerves.

She had assumed that it was some form of rebellion against norms of what was expected of a daughter of a renowned intellectual. From what she could recall, many were often snobbish and less concerned with the mundane, instead choosing to focus on the erudite. It was not unlike the family of her classmate Ulrike Heinrich IV; the young woman had come from a wealthy family in New July. The Heinrichs had produced many scholars, like the legendary botanist Ulrike Heinrich I, and the physicist Neumann Heinrich. But however, despite intense pressure to go into the sciences, Ulrike had chosen to go into accounting to escape the family legacy. It had succeeded, at the cost of losing her inheritance. But the woman never cared much for them, calling them 'muddled-headed snobs who were slowly forgetting the big picture.'

It was not until years later that the Heinrich family ended up going bankrupt after piling up debt after debt; Ulrike's two sisters and three brothers lost their inheritances to creditors as they rifled through everything, including the will of the late Bartholomew Heinrich II to recover assets owed to them. As a results the remaining five siblings were forced to became breadwinners. One was just beginning her life as a housewife; after her husband was arrested for lying to creditors, she had no choice but to prostitute herself out to men to earn money to feed her son. A brother found himself under the supervision of an exploitative manager of an iron mine; the working conditions were so poor to the point that accidents were frequent. He died two years into his tenure when a boulder crushed him. The rest became embittered alcoholics because of the sudden change in their circumstances.

"Any news on the Maimouth Project yet?" Milly's question to Ania broke Meryl out of her thoughts. The aforementioned development was a terraforming project that was years in the making. The various squabbles between various factions working on it had delayed the venture for years.

"The fucking Council denied the necessary funding. Again," Ania snarled as she stuffed her face with yet another bite of pancake.

"No wonder your dad is so irritated with them. The rampant corruption there is hampering the Council's function," Milly pointed out. There were times that even Milly had been frustrated by the squabbles in the Council of Technological Research. One notable incident years ago involved a long-standing squabble between two of the members there. Dr. Melinda Shasta and Dr. Roger Barnhart butted heads over almost everything, including the Maimouth Project. Dr. Shasta wanted to funnel the clear majority of the Council's funds into it, but Dr. Barnhart stonewalled her at every opportunity. This caused resentment between the two, as they had vastly differing views that were incompatible. The feud between them grew through the years, with each other sabotaging each other's projects at every opportunity. This grew to a head when Dr. Shasta hacked Dr. Barnhart's computer remotely and exposed his dirty laundry, including his previous convictions on assault and fraud counts. In turn Dr. Barnhart exposed Dr. Shasta's infidelity and various affairs with her students.

However, the newspapers went further and exposed Dr. Barnhart's history of domestic violence, including his role in the murder of a fiancée who tried to leave him and Dr. Shasta's incompetence; many of her projects had failed to yield results. After further investigation it turned out Dr. Shasta's degree was fraudulent, and the woman was quickly sent to prison. Dr. Barnhart had followed her there after a lengthy trial involving many witnesses and pieces of evidence.

"Not to mention the lying and the backstabbing going on behind the scenes," Marianne Cayzen pointed out, "My uncle worked there for many years and he said that the place was full of toxicity. People cutting each other down behind their back and lying to others. Many fraudulent applications were approved during his tenure. The higher-ups kept passing the buck when they weren't supposed to. And there were absolutely zero accountability there."

"My dad says that these practices are still ongoing, though," Ania jabbed a fork at Marianne.

"Do your father, by any chance, happen to be Dr. Cegrim Von?" The query caught the gunslinger off-guard.

"Yes," she replied as she inhaled another bite of food.

"That explain so much about your knowledge of their politics," the blonde woman pointed out.

"Not to mention there's rumours of shady dealings with the various criminal organizations on No Man's Land," Cliff Schezar added, "If I know anything about crime, it's that they will come for what's owed to them. Especially when it is a project they can exploit to gain profits."

"Like the Moors Debacle?" Vash chimed in. That event revolved around the Moors, a well-known building project in Macca City slated to be expensive condos. It had collapsed mysteriously one day during construction, killing 89 people. All of them were construction workers. During inquiries it turned out that the support columns were woefully inadequate for the task they were designed. Upon further investigation it turned out that the owners were threatened with death by the local criminal organization there unless they hired the contracting firms of a major underboss. This attracted a great deal of attention from the media and even now, the area where the Moors were remained empty as various factions disputed over what to do with it.

"And the collapse of the Beth Shalom Synagogue in Octovern?" Ania chimed in, "I heard it was a newly built house of worship for the Jewish community there."

"Yeah, the walls and roof collapsed upon the congregation during Sabbath services," Milly recalled, "522 people died and over 706 were injured. We were called upon to assess the damage there a year ago."

"It turned out the Augusta Mafia infiltrated the building crew there," Meryl added, "Forced the managers to pay pizzo or face being violently killed."

"I'm not surprised that what was supposed to go toward quality building materials was diverted to that odious 'tax'," Ania snarled, punctuating her statements with air quotes.

"I've heard rumours about the new mayor of Gallus. Seems that he has a beef with the Capuchin friars on the town's outskirts," Cliff's eyes swept over the quartet's faces.

"Er… I don't get what you are talking about," Ania sweatdropped nervously while scratching her head.

"Neither do I," Milly followed suit with an embarrassed laugh.

When Cliff thought about it, it made sense. The Capuchins at Gallus were a reclusive bunch though, they often didn't come to town unless it was necessary. Although the friars still donned their traditional habits with one exception; they wore footwear. The reason was that the sands of No Man's Land could be searing hot to the point it caused serious burns to bare feet. As a result, the order had grudgingly declared them to be a necessity.

"They said he wants the Capuchins' land for a housing development," he pointed out.

"Just great, another self-proclaimed leading genius," Ania rolled her eyes before she snarked, "his ego would fit nicely in a mousehole _._ "

"Not to mention that the profits from such a project would have been massive enough to justify such a thing, Ania. Greed runs the world, remember?" Meryl snorted.

* * *

 **The Tower**

She dreamed of forgotten voices from long ago.

" _Dr. Hachiyama, you have been promoted to high technician for the Harmonia project,"_

The labs where she worked at.

" _The variable readings have changed on subject 33-4,"_

" _Subject 29-1 has shown signs of expiring, Hachiyama-sama,"_

The long-forgotten faces of dead colleagues.

" _Do you wanna go out for drinks, Tae?,"_

" _Happy Birthday, Tae-chan!"_

" _Congratulations, Dr. Hachiyama,"_

The face of her boss, his face frozen in terror as swords disembowelled him to death.

"Please protect the assets of Project HARMONIA, Herr Hachiyama," his last words echoed repeatedly in the dreams, overlaid all over the dream slash flashbacks.

Hachiyama Taeko woke, panting. These dreams were so real… it was like long-buried memories.

"You ok?" Oda hovered around her head.

"I think these dreams I had were snippets of my previous life," She replied.

"You know all too well the rule against seeking past lives, Taeko," Her ghost replied.

Taeko could remember all too well the day she had foolishly asked Zavala if there were any guardians who remembered their past lives. His withering glare quickly shot down the idea. She had assumed at the time that it had something to do with his previous life among the Awoken military. As much as the two had in common with their loathing of the Queen, they both admitted that she had been indispensable in the takedown of Oryx, the Taken King.

"But these memories could be clues to what I must do," the female Voidwalker replied.

"Maybe it's time to consult with Ikora?"

* * *

The ratchet of various voices chattering, some in heated debates grated on Yuri Petrovich Sokolov's nerves. He desperately wanted some peace and quiet, so he could focus on his necessary work of investigating potential candidates for analysis.

Although he didn't quite meet some of the stereotypes of his country, like big, beefy brutes (That honor belonged to the titans from the motherland), his colleagues had agreed that he fit other stereotypes like the perpetual love for the national drink of Russia, and his tendency to drink to deal with the stresses of his life as a Guardian.

His desk was piled high with various tomes on astronomy. On the bulletin board there were satellite-derived images of binary stars scrawled with notes in both Russian and English. Other pins were of readings derived from the sensors installed on them.

So far, he had found six anomalies so far. Some of them had turned up to be dead ends, but two bore signs that begged closer observation. The first was 43 Eridani and the other was Delta Trianguli.

Although both were good candidates, he thought that 43 Eridani was a better candidate because it had a consistently visible orbital disk and several large gas giants that absorbed most of the rogue asteroids. Planets like these were essentials to sustaining life because they sheltered the smaller planets in the Goldilocks zones around each star from dangerous comet and meteor impacts that could potentially wipe out the lifeforms developing there.

"Yuri, remember the Ishtar Cliffs?" Anatoly was lost in reminiscing.

"Yes, Sherman had the gall to do such a moronic thing! _Yeblya_ titans!" Yuri replied.

"And that time he accidently demolished a building in the European Dead Zone?"

"Zavala was not happy with him. He looked absolutely furious," He recalled the incident. That building that meathead of an American had demolished was one of immense historical value, as it was one of the few intact buildings dating from before the Golden Age.

"And the time Murphy and Sherman got in hot water with the Vanguard over an incident at Cayde's favorite ramen shop?" Anatoly circled around the Warlock's head.

" _Da_ , it turned out that they got in a brawl with troublemakers there," he recalled, "It wasn't their fault. The gangsters had the gall to call Murphy a 'despicable nigger' and it set off Sherman's considerable temper. He would have killed these two if other titans hadn't restrained him."

Yuri's concentration was suddenly interrupted by cursing in Mexican Spanish. Ricardo Melendez stumbled into his work area. It was commonly known that the Hispanic warlock was among some of the clumsiest Guardians and it showed in how he found it difficult to coordinate simple movements. Yuri had long suspected that Melendez had dyspraxia. It was a disorder that manifested in difficulty planning and coordinating physical movement, and it showed in how frequently he tripped and bumped into things and people, including his fellow Guardians.

Melendez's manifestation was in ideational and ideomotor areas; he struggled frequently with walking and running and even now it was still there. Even after long, intensive training sessions under Ikora. His glide was also among the most ungraceful-looking, due to this awkwardness.

"You tripped again, Melendez?" His question wasn't surprising.

" _Sí_ , Sokolov," the taller man replied. He begun fidgeting with the rosary around his neck. Yuri knew from observation that the man had been an observant Roman Catholic in his previous life. He had no love for religion; he had learnt the hard way, but he couldn't even recall how that had begun.

It was a side effect of his resurrection. Many Guardians, like him had forgotten their previous life. Some of them had taken their names from personal effects around their corpses, like Ana Bray. She had been revived with her Clovis Bray ID badge. Her obsession with seeking out her previous life had grated on Zavala's nerves and before she had died at Twilight Gap, the two had argued frequently.

Yuri had his new ID badge issued by Clovis Bray and a copy of the first part of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. The notation in the front of the book had read, "Congratulations on your graduation, Yur'yan! Love from your Babushka!"

"Have you heard the rumours? About the Young Wolf?" Ricardo's query was brushed off.

"I don't have time for incessant gossiping!"

Ricardo blew a raspberry, before he shrugged.

"Ok, ok, I get it. So, about that SEEDS project, there's some unverified rumors that it came from a different company that split off from Clovis Bray a few years before the Collapse," He changed the subject.

"If there was such a thing, there would have been some evidence somewhere. I don't think that this event has happened." Yuri pointed out, "The things transmitted through rumours are always of dubious value."

"And some of them are pretty tall tales," Ricardo pointed out, "I recall one story the refugees I was escorting told me. According to them it was about a legendary crime lord who disappeared mysteriously one day. The stories exaggerated his deeds and misdeeds, and versions contradicted each other. It was hard to tell what was true and false."

"I remember one tale that came from Golden Age Russia. According to it, a Russian mob boss hired hitmen to off his rivals. This event didn't turn out the way he wanted, as he and his rivals were abducted days after he made the deal. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave in a Leningrad town. Some stories claimed the three pissed somebody higher up on the food chain off, while others said the trio saw something they were supposed not to. A third tale claimed they were backstabbed by a fourth faction who wanted their fiefdoms," Yuri's reminiscing was interesting, less to say.

"And there's the legends around Las Cruces Prison. There are claims that it is among one of the most haunted places. They claim that ghosts of murdered prisoners roam the place and that mysterious screams ring out at odd hours," Ricardo explained, "It's not surprising since that place was a flashpoint of the Great Cartel Wars."

Yuri shuddered, that period was a turbulent one for Melendez's homeland. During that era, powerful drug lords and their cartels controlled much of Mexico's regions. Corruption and murders were commonplace; it was also not uncommon to be kidnapped for ransom. But it had been brought to a screeching halt nearly six decades after the Traveller arrived on Earth by new laws that were introduced to combat corruption and racketeering among Mexico's elite.

"There's plenty of odder rumours than that split, though. Like the ones about Wey-Yuta's little parasitoid project," Ricardo pointed out.

"And that mysterious project in the Ishtar Academy? There've been some ongoing debate on what the research really entailed," Yuri put his hand to his chin. He could recall finding this mysterious room in the third basement level of the Academy. He and Anatoly had sent days cataloguing the contents of the room. The terminals had been picked clean by scavengers from the House of Winter of any valuable components many years ago. As a result, valuable data had been permanently lost.

" _Sí_ , I remember seeing that place with my own eyes. I assume that the scientists were researching things there that was related to cyrogenic technology," Ricardo sat on one of the crates and put his feet upon a second, smaller one.

"What made you reach that conclusion?," Yuri's query was expected.

"It's the _pendojo_ tubes. When I opened one of them a few days ago, I found it was filled with liquid nitrogen," He stuck his arms out, "It was probably intended to be a laboratory that developed improved cyro-stasis technology during the Golden age."

"Make sense," Yuri replied, "But the one that stood out in my mind about the room was that busted light-bulb device in the middle of the room."

"An enigma wrapped in a mystery waiting to be unravelled? I'm in," Ricardo's eyes glimmered in anticipation.

* * *

 **Felnarl Town**

The ever-ubiquitous Daniel's Whisky No. 8 was the liquor of choice of many people when they wanted to get drunk. Tasted terrible, too. But the town drunks of No Man's Land didn't care, they were too busy escaping the realities of living on a forsaken wasteland of a world through this drink. The distinct gourd-shaped bottle was memorable. The triple-distilled was the most common variety found everywhere.

Markus Granlund had cut off many drunks at his work; the last time he had did so, the pissed-off man had the audacity to pick a fight with him. That fool had learnt the hard way not to mess with a Titan.

He had been resurrected in the ruins of a barrack belonging to the Finnish military. He had assumed that he was a soldier in a previous life, as he had his _tunnuslevy_ with his name on it around his neck. After he had made his way to a nearby settlement, he quickly found that he had a talent for bartending and quickly took over the local tavern after the previous owner passed on from old age.

Markus found his new job was far more enjoyable than shooting aliens; it was about social relationships and offering hospitality to weary travellers. And occasionally he would pick up rumours about various things currently going on. Some of them were ridiculous enough to be scoffed at. Like that exaggerated rumour about some rogue divisions of Clovis Bray being involved in illegal experiments on Exos during the Golden Age. And other spoke of secret hiding places of the Golden Age's rich and famous; from whatever itinerant explorers could find, some had been verified. Kimmer, his ghost, had told him that they weren't immune from the effects of the Collapse. Many had been slaughtered in the attempt to flee to their underground bunkers, while others were killed by forces lurking inside them.

He turned his attention to the bustling bar scene before him. The band playing there with the improvised instruments was always one of his favorite acts. The cadence of the music was unique and quite difficult to replicate without similar instruments and the lengthy experience needed to play them. He had tried his hand at the jug, but it was difficult finding one which didn't crumble under his enhanced strength.

One of the patrons was bragging about his sexual escapades around the town; Markus tuned him out. He didn't like men who took advantage of women; he had personally knocked out many sexual harassers in Schroeder's Saloon. It had arisen from when he had rescued his now-wife Madison from a betrothal to a serial rapist when she was seventeen. After this man had been caught and sent to No Man's Land's only prison after a lengthy trial, it had heralded the fall of Madison's family. Debt collectors begun hounding the once-wealthy Zagitov family, even as they split up to evade them. Some of them had been murdered after they refused to part with the riches that they owed to others.

Madison had disowned them in a widely published newspaper announcement the month after she turned eighteen. It had ended up attracting the attention of various criminal and legal investigators, who were eager to turn up any sordid details about numerous illicit activities the Zagitovs were involved in. Madison had gleefully spilled the beans to get back at her overambitious parents and siblings.

It was at the end of a three-year-long trial that involved thousands of pieces of evidence and testimonies of six dozen individual witnesses including Madison's, that Tyrion and Tyson were conceived. It had occurred on the night after both Viktor and Bianca Zagitov, Madison's parents were sentenced to well over sixty consecutive life sentences in prison on racketeering, murder, pimping and fraud charges.

The fact that Markus and Madison were expecting twins had came as a shock. And the ultrasound had confirmed that the babies were monoamniotic-monochorionic, which came with higher risks, like twin to twin transfusion syndrome and entangling of the umbilical cords. This necessitated a trip to April during the 23th week of that pregnancy. The twins were delivered at 34 weeks, clutching each other's hands soon after their birth.

"I know you're concerned about Tyrion and Tyson. The fact that their strength is showing at such a young age also have me worried, especially because of the injuries they inflicted during schoolyard fights," Kimmer did the Ghost equivalent of pacing and forth.

"I don't know what to do with them. Sending them to school is a risky move, and Madison isn't a very good teacher," He answered.

"I agree, she is really that lousy. At least she has found her niche in bureaucracy," Kimmer replied, "From what we've seen with the Seven Cities, all are bogged down in red tape. Octovern and April are the worst offenders so far. Old July used to be number one, but April has moved up ever since July was lost."

"I can still recall that price-fixing scandal a few years ago. Of all the things they choose, why does it have to be _cabbage_?" Markus' query caught Kimmer off guard. He knew that his Guardian was fond of foodstuffs made with the vegetable, like sauerkraut and cabbage rolls.

"And the political scandal involving a former Gustav's Sickle councilman? He lied about his taxes while he was running for office in New Las Vegas." The Ghost's observation reminded Markus of the unsavory side of human nature. Greed really did run this world.

"Yes, He was caught red-handed by the United Tax Agency during that campaign. Got six years for tax evasion. Died of old age four years into his sentence," the Titan could recall watching the news story unfold over the weeks the campaign ran, "Remember the time the Augusta Mafia tried to buy out the Lewiston town election?"

"They were also caught red-handed by the falcones, though," Kimmer answered, "The Mafia Commission sanctioned a hit on whoever outed the deal to them. Remember the Valiere debacle?"

"Yeah, that fucking child rapist had the audacity to deny his crimes. The fucking Crewlin studios still kept him, even after the details of his crimes was made public!" Markus's voice had an undercurrent of anger.

"I agree, I wouldn't even trust the guy around children," Kimmer stopped pacing, his eye facing Markus' face.

"Neither would I, Markus. My aunt would drag my cousins to auditions with the intent to make them child stars. She ended up losing child custody to her ex after it was revealed that after many big-wigs rejected her children, she wound up giving them over to a pornographic director. Ever since, they have been drug-addicted and homeless. One had a fatal overdose last August," One of his regulars, a gaunt-looking man with endless tremors snorted.

"Not to mention there's rumours the fucking Catholic Church is up to their old tricks again," A second man spat out, "There's been credible claims that their priests buggered little kids at boarding schools in Lewiston, Valdoor and New Las Vegas."

"Oh yeah, pointing fingers at the prevailing culture instead of admitting that it was a leadership failure. Real slick, Romeo, real slick," A third one sniffed, his beady eyes full of cynicism and hate.

"Not to mention that Valiere sicko molested Keisha Breyan. I hear she passed away last month from liver disease," The first man pointed out.

"It is obvious that this came from her alcoholism, Matt. The drunk bitch was a washout by the time she turned twenty-five," the third man added, "Addictions are everywhere in Crewlin. The complex there care only about profits."

"I am not that surprised. And the harsh reality of this world makes it worse. The deserts are the most unforgiving place to live in," Markus answered.

"And according to recent studies commissioned by a leading health think-tank, alcohol abuse and related diseases and injuries take up nearly seventy-five percent of No Man's Land's health-related expenditures," the second man, Romeo, retorted.

* * *

 _ **Abandoned Town**_

The black cat sat on the ledge outside the windows. She licked her paws before she preened, cleaning out the sand and grime while the soft light of Cúig illuminated her. The sudden movement of the windows behind her was startling and she promptly fell off it.

"Kuroneko-sama?" Vash had briefly spotted the cat that sat behind the window in his room. He had pushed aside the ugly-looking curtains and the aforementioned window with the intention to pick her up.

"Marianne wants to show us something," Meryl stepped in his room. Vash was somewhat confused, what was it that the woman wanted to demonstrate?

"There's a Plant machine in the basement. Seems that they were built from schematics years ago." Marianne stood outside the door of his room. Ania flipped her knife repeatedly before she blew a raspberry out of utter boredom.

"Yea, I think Cliff's grandfather was a self-trained mechanic," Milly's observation had some coherence to it.

"Great observation. My dad has been working on prototypes like these. To see that someone had beaten him to the punch would shock him greatly," Ania chimed in, "But the Council have hindered his and many other scientists' important work for many years."

"There are bets everywhere that the next big scandal will come directly from these fools," Meryl snorted, "Even the bookmakers are hedging their bets against them."

"Yeah, I recall the last scandal was that cabbage price-fixing fiasco among the Big Six. They really ran with the idea," Marianne replied as she led the quartet to a nearby stairwell.

The Big Six were the major grocery chains scattered all over No Man's Land. They were called Sainsbury's, Hadley & Waldow, Perris's, ASDA, Target, and Farouk. Target and ASDA was endemic to the December region. The latter was expanding southwest to New Las Vegas, encroaching into areas traditionally held by Hadley and Waldow, known as H&W in short. The aforementioned chain was confined to Octovern and its neighbouring communities, ever since it lost money in a disastrous merger attempt with another chain that had long went bankrupt for unknown reasons.

Perris's was widespread, appearing in nearly every city except December and Old July. The distinct teal green and autumn gold colour scheme helped distinguish them from their competitors; their mascot, a fat man in an apron was also memorable because of his exaggerated moustache and a bitten off ear. According to the current CEO, the image was of his great-grandfather and that the man had his ear bitten off during a prize fight during his brief boxing career.

This brought up some boxing story from before the Collapse in Ania and Meryl's minds. It involved one Evander Holyfield having his ear bitten off by his rival, Mike Tyson II. During the time period it had aired, it had produced quite the furor and Tyson was disqualified. He was sent to prison for that shocking instance of misbehaviour. Even after centuries after this scandalous event, the memory of that particular event had never dulled in intensity among boxing die-hards; It was constantly retold, from mentor to student, and from fan to fan. There was also archival footage of the event that had been brought to No Man's Land by the ships involved in the Big Fall.

Sainsbury's was primarily confined to April, while Farouk was widespread in April and Augusta. However, there were rumours that the corporations controlling both stores was planning a merger. Although word of mouth weren't usually reliable sources, insiders had hinted that such a deal had been on the table for years, and both parties were moving to seal the deal.

"Yes, I recall that mess. Both of my parents were furious," Milly pointed out, "Do you remember the Weiner debacle a few years ago?"

The rest shuddered. That scandal was one of the worst to come out in recent years, as it had involved a potential candidate of the House of Representatives; He was called Antony Weiner. However compromising photos had been released to the public by one of his ex-lovers, and it had basically ruined his rising political career after it turned out that Weiner had a history of sexually assaulting young women under his employment. To make it worse, there were allegations that Weiner had misrepresented his earnings to evade the United Tax agency. Unfortunately for the ass, they were proven true. He ended up serving a lengthy prison sentence for his crimes, and all the money from his campaign fundraising were appropriated to pay off the taxes he had owed as well as paying judgements issued against him from various lawsuits brought by aggrieved parties.

The group descended the dark staircase. A single, flickering light lit the way downstairs, and the painted cinderblock walls reminded Ania of the jail cells she had seen while turning fugitives in. Meryl and Milly had seen them too many times while traversing various governmental buildings as part of their work. They were so institutional-looking. And sterile, too. Especially when they were painted ivory, sea green, or beige.

The group moved through the meandering hallways of the basement. Occasionally they would stumble across some curiosities, like a few brains in jars on a shelf in a deserted laboratory. Another room held numerous miniature models of various vehicles, some originating from before the Collapse and others of current ones, like the 1:24 model of the SNDS _Curitania_. It was one of six Megahumpback-class sandsteamers made before the company operating them was shuttered in a hostile takeover. They were expensive to make and any more plans to produce them was quickly shot down by the new owners. The capacity of this type was well over 2,500 people. They had a 1,000 square feet spa, a 3,550 square feet casino, a 30x50 swimming pool with the deep end being twelve feet deep, and two water slides. There were well over 1,200 cabins, with luxurious touches everywhere, even in the third-class.

Another room held various antique books. Some of them had been written in archaic languages that had not been spoken in decades, perhaps a century and a half. Ania knew that if her father had seen them, he would be in heaven. He was one heck of a bookworm, and there were times that her mother had to drag him out of book shops.

The Plant room was situated in a natural cavern; the stalactites that hung down were filled with bat like creatures that always came out at night. They often feasted on the fruits of the few native florae of No Man's land. The instruments needed to operate the machine was on the opposite side of where the quintet was standing. The bulbs glowed softly in the dark, as the motors powered by the Plants whirred in sluggish tones.

"Is that the machine you were talking about?" Vash's question made Marianne nod in reply.

"Some of these components aren't joined properly. The vacuum tubes are not supposed to go this way. The regulators aren't even colour coded. And so many safety issues here and there," Ania circled around it, pointing out things only a trained plant technician would know. It wasn't surprising to the rest. As a result of being raised by a Plant researcher, she was taught things that few people knew.

"I recall that one sandsteamer explosion was caused by similar faults like that over fifty years ago," Vash pointed out.

"According to the records in the Bernadelli Insurance Society archives, it was the SNDS Handel," Meryl added, "Nearly 200 people died and another 600 were injuried."

"Yeah, that one was a whammy," Milly added, "It resulted in stricter safety standards for all Plant machines operating all over No Man's land."

A shotgun was pointed at Vash's back.

"Excuse me,"

* * *

 **Glossary**

 **Tunnuslevy:** Finnish military identification plate.


	11. Chapter 11

**The outskirts of Xi'an City**

The compound that was now the headquarters of Smiley's Circus was once the future abode of Zhou Fai-Dan, a notorious criminal lord who fancied himself to be a reincarnation of an emperor from ancient China. He had purchased 40 acres of land with ill-gotten funds from his criminal activities. His intention with this land was to recreate the Forbidden City on No Man's Land.

But as soon as the first three concrete slabs for the future palace he had envisioned had been poured, he was arrested by authorities for his roles in various crimes. Civil forfeiture laws took effect and the property was seized and auctioned off at the low price of 450,000 double dollars. Smiley's Circus had acquired this with the intention to build a large training and storage facility that the troupe desperately needed six years ago. The largest concrete slab was converted to a six-story dorm building for the performers. The other, smaller slabs were converted to storage vaults for equipment for performances. A fourth slab, much larger than the rest was being poured. This would be the training and rehearsal facility.

Vincent-11 could see the construction site from his window. The buzzing worksite moved from spot to spot as they inspected it, repaired any cracks and smoothed the surface.

"They're making some damn good work," female arms wrapped around his abdomen.

"Yeah, I don't think we could have made it far without that purchase, Adelaide," He replied as he turned toward a young woman with waist-length straight lilac hair and blue eyes. She was pleasantly curvy, with a full bosom and long legs. She had been rescued from Po's Brothel in Neon City when she was ten. Her impoverished parents had sold her to the owners at age nine, and she was being groomed to become one of the most expensive prostitutes there at the time of her rescue.

"Indeed, I think Smiley's Circus have the potential to go far now that we have facilities now," Midoriko added. She was slight, with a round face and dark brown hair. Her almond-shaped eyes were pale green. Like Adelaide, she had also been rescued by Vincent from a brothel. That one was in Goroshima; it was called Berubettotatchi and was based off the brothels of the once-venerable Yoshiwara District in Edo-era Japan, with geisha and oiran. Midoriko had ran away from the place a day after she was delivered there. Vincent had killed the employees who had come and try to retrieve their investment. She had left Goroshima with him, never to return.

Adelaide caressed his metallic body, giggling as she did so. She had found the fact that Vincent was a human mind in a mechanical body to be a novelty; to her knowledge, he was the only one.

"And it was all thanks to that asshole," Vincent laughed out loud as Adelaide tickled him mercilessly.

"Yeah, no one liked him anyway," Midoriko snorted. It was a well-known fact in the region that Zhou had rivals and underlings trying to undercut him through any means possible, even if it meant double-crossing him. But Zhou had a nearly supernatural sense for detecting such things; he frequently turned the tables upon them, even using their schemes to further his aims.

This infuriated Zhou's enemies, and there were many alliances that had set up plans after plans to kill the Chinese man. Nearly all had failed, save for one. That one was the brainchild of one Franklin Zheng-Kiziak. He had downloaded information on many of Zhou's criminal activities onto a USB stick, an archaic method of memory storage that was still in use on No Man's Land. He fled the small city of Tianjiang, eventually arriving in New July, where he turned it over to the police there. His original ambitions were to use it as leverage to force Zhao to cede a significant chunk of his territory to Zheng-Kiziak. However, this scheme failed so the man had decided that he would do away with Zhou by leaking the information to authorities with the intention to have him taken down permanently. It had worked too well; As soon as Zhou's spot had been vacated with his conviction and incarceration, Zheng-Kiziak had seized control of much of his superior's fiefdom, which included Xi'an City and Tianjiang. This control was short-lived; six months after his ascension to top dog, he had been killed in a drive-by shooting while dining out at a Malaysian restaurant.

"I've heard rumours about Zhou. They claimed he was a Reader. It certainly explains how he was able to anticipate his foes' moves," A masculine voice chimed in. Khostov Xian was one of the circus strongmen and Vincent's roommate. He had the build of a stereotypical Russian, and his face was a striking admixture of sharp Caucasian features and the rotundness typically found in Han Chinese. From what he had told Vincent, Khostov was an orphan and street urchin who had been plucked straight off the thoroughfares of Old July by the manager of Smiley's Circus when he was eleven.

"I never thought of that," Midoriko answered, "If he really was, then what schemes his rivals had put in place could have been torn asunder by his telepathy."

"And that would have been problematic," Adelaide murmured in agreement.

"I suppose that what Zheng-Kiziak did was exceptional, even by human standards," Vincent shrugged.

* * *

 **The Old Plantation, Octovern**

The immaculate American Colonial exterior belied the reality inside. In the passing decades since the previous owners had gone bankrupt, the building had fallen into disrepair. It had originally begun out as a luxury hotel that catered to the tastes of No Man's Land's elite. The bars there once served mint juleps made with herbs scrupulously grown to perfection in Octovern's downtown greenhouses. Their selection was once stocked with expensive, quality liquor that were much coveted by the rich clientele they served. The basement pool had an elaborate mosaic design based off one of No Man's Land's most famous artists' painting. It had depicted an idealized portrait of two lovers, and their tragic story was told in the vignettes in the corners of the rounded rectangle pool.

Of course, that design now had tiles that had been chipped off and vandals had spray painted rude words all over the pools. Whore, ho, cunt, manwhore and more. No wonder they had low opinions of the couple. It was sadly unsurprising since their dalliance had caused a scandal among the well-heeled circles of the city, as they both had been betrothed to others. But the unnamed lovers' plans to flee Octovern after they had passed out compromising photos of their betrothed out to tabloids had met with ruins. Their families had hired assassins to kill them in order to keep them from staining their images. It had succeeded, and their names had been wiped from their families' histories because of the tremendous embarrassment the duo had caused.

Dr. Ernest Radegast had set his laboratory up in this area as he needed a larger area for his lengthy research in cybernetics. He had believed the best chance for humanity on this forsaken world had laid with the development of easily available cybernetic upgrades, even if mean going against what many of his colleagues' opinions.

Dr. Marcella Bogart had repeatedly warned Dr. Radegast that his premise was flawed. Especially since she had told him that many scientists had abandoned this concept ever since the Massacre of Gustav's Sickle. She had made it abundantly clear that these upgrades could be easily hacked by nefarious parties. He had dismissed her concerns.

She had sided with Dr. Cegrim Von. That idealistic bastard had the wrong idea; He had waxed poetic upon how upgrading the technology that sustained the Plants' lives would benefit large swathes of the populace on No Man's Land. Dr. Radegast didn't want humanity to be tethered to the finite powers of the Plants forever.

The Council of Technological Research listened to him, not that doddering fool. They had granted him over 3 hundred thousand double dollars to work on his projects. So far, he had begun prototyping his line of artificial limbs using captured fugitives; they were lobotomized so they would be useful to his plans. So far of the combined 52 subjects he had collected, only 12 survived.

A-6, one of his most reliable subjects drooled in the corner. He was once a serial sex offender who preyed upon teen girls in the now-impoverished Pretia district. Dr. Radegast had purchased the subject and twenty-one others from The Pit, No Man's Land's only prison. It had begun out as a granite quarry; but after the previous owner had sold it to the authorities in order to spite his rivals over their attempts to acquire his property, it was quickly decided that it would make a suitable prison. Cells were hollowed out of the walls and the builder drilled deeper into the natural cavern system below. Highly lethal security systems were installed. Few prisoners succeeded in escaping The Pit in the years since it was established.

B-21 was formerly a man on death row. He had been convicted of the murders of two men at a crowded bar in Augusta. This had begun out as a dispute between him and them; He had wanted to purchase their land, but they had repeatedly rebuffed his offer. He had then turned to the courts in order to try and dislodge the properties they held by claiming they had unpaid debts toward him, but they ruled against him at every level. This had eventually led to more violent methods, like hiring thugs to terrorize their families. But these had failed, as the men stood firm against them. The culmination of this desperation to get his hands on these lands had led to him gunning these two down while they played roulette at the bar in front of horrified witnesses.

His trial was a widely publicized affair, with journalists coming in from faraway cities to report on the events. His dirty secrets were exposed to the public to scrutinize, including his associations with certain unsavory factions in politics and his failed relationships with various women. There was extensive evidence that B-21 had violently abused these women, even splashing acid on one of them after she fled the betrothal her parents had set up for the two of them. And yet others had revealed how callous the man was; He had once forced three employees to work to their deaths as compensation for a project failure. To make it worse, on an ancient psychopathy checklist imported from pre-Collapse Earth, he had scored highly on all counts.

After he was sentenced to death, he had lingered for six years in the bowels of the Pit before he was purchased by Dr. Radegast with 29 other prisoners. After the lobotomy was performed B-21 had acquired the tendency to stare into space, babbling meaningless words and phrases.

As of now, he had been deadened for his upcoming surgery. The former convict's legs were to be amputated at the mid-thigh and replaced with powerful cybernetic legs with built-in rocket thrusters. This was the second prototype he had worked on in the last four months. The first had been an abysmal failure. They had ended up killing the subject he had implanted them on. It wasn't a waste, that person was a disposable asset that was used to further Dr. Radegast's vision of success.

"I h-have the possessions you r-requested," his assistant, Mudders, carted the legs into the room. The young man vaguely resembled a gerbil, with his bucktooth and his reddish-brown hair. His wide, frightened eyes were inky black. He had what was left of a hemangioma on the left side of his neck and it was somewhat massive, reaching to the nape of his neck.

"Good, now give me the saw," Dr. Radegast's command made him nervous; He picked up gingerly the bone saw as he gave a small shudder. Mudders didn't agree with everything Dr. Radegast did, but after his family's exile from high society ten years ago he was forced into less than desired positions.

Although Dr. Radegast paid well, he was unbearable to work with. The man was stubborn, and frequently refused to take any advice, even when it was true. And his obsession with his project was unnerving on many levels.

Dr. Radegast inspected the saw. The serrated blade was losing sharpness. Turning to the nearby workbench, he picked up a screwdriver and got to work.

Mudders inspected the components lined up on a wall. There were various exotic technologies; one had been a strange crystal that had been recovered from the bowels of the colony ship that had became April. He had heard rumours that it was a photovoltaic crystal; they were extremely rare, and thus expensive to obtain.

How had Dr. Radegast managed to get his soiled hands on it?

* * *

 **Abandoned Town**

The reactions to the shotgun were just as varied as the persons they belonged to. Ania Solezulam swore profusely, while Milly Thompson gasped. Meryl Stryfe facepalmed while Vash stood still in one place, not daring to draw Cliff Schezar's ire.

The red-clad gunslinger chuckled sheepishly, his arms up in the air. He tried a feeble joke, causing Meryl and Ania to roll their eyes.

"What are you doing?" Maria Cayzen's query was expected. Cliff Schezar prodded his shotgun into Vash's back.

"Collecting on a bounty that should have been cashed in years ago," He replied.

"Shit!" Ania's curse didn't go unnoticed. She pulled her gun out of its holster as she readied a smoke grenade.

"You FUCKING bastard!" she snarled, as she tossed down the grenade. This was a way to help the quintet escape the predicament they were in. The 60 billion double dollars bounty on Vash's head meant that he was a trouble magnet and with good reason.

The smoke grenade acted as a signal the rest of the group followed, running as fast down the complex network of caves as fast as they could. Hopefully the distraction worked.

"At least we didn't blow up Dorry's Tavern," Milly's comment made the rest sweatdrop.

"Or instigate that brawl in Palo Alto," Meryl and Vash replied in unison.

"If I recall correctly, the town drunk and his gang came in looking for a fight," Ania pointed out.

Marianne was flummoxed; the conversation the quartet had was referring to some of their past experiences. Seems they had interesting lives.

"I recall that one time one of my pursuers nearly destroyed the Grand Bahia Principe Resort. That place is one of the most popular resorts in New Miami City. At the time it started I was visiting Portland and decided to try out some old Japanese ball lottery crank. Apparently, I got the only golden ball, and ended up winning a luxury vacation package sponsored by the resort itself," Vash 's storytelling was quite enthralling.

"What happened next?" Marianne's question was expected; Vash's face broke out into a grin.

"One of the bounty hunters caught wind of my location as soon as I arrived there. He had a giant arm-mounted minigun and gold teeth," His reminiscing made Meryl and Milly's jaws drop.

"What was his name?"

"He was Doris Botheby, but everybody called him Dorry. According to rumours from the locals I gleaned that his mother wished for a girl but got a boy instead. As a child he was bullied mercilessly because his mother made him dress like the daughter she never had. In his teens he had been known to torture cats and dogs," The explanation made the other four shudder.

"In a nutshell, he's a fledging serial killer," Ania's observation made sense.

"Yeah, after I led him away from the resort to a less-than-desirable location he kept shooting at me, even though he kept missing. The people who used to frequent it fled when they heard I was coming. The seedy hotel collapsed around him as it sustained large volumes of gunfire that wasn't sustainable. It was days after I left New Miami City that I found out that Botheby was being investigated for his role in a multitude of killings of streetwalkers in Ward 4," Vash had confirmed it.

The quintet came across a large chasm. In front of the four was a wooden suspension bridge.

"That looks rickety," Milly commented.

"Way to state the obvious," Ania's sarcastic comeback was refreshing. Even with the adrenaline rush of fleeing Schezar, the quintet was edgy about the bridge. Only Ania and Vash's respective abilities could safely carry them over the chasm. The other three didn't have Plant-based powers or Ania's unique brand of abilities.

"I don't know if we -," Gunfire rang out behind the quintet. They could see Schezar catching up in the dim lightning of the cave.

The quintet bit off a series of curses as they either leapt over the chasm or scrambled across the bridge. The combined weight of Meryl, Marianne and Milly caused the worn-down ropes on both sides to fray.

"Oh, CRAP!"

SNAP! The ropes gave way; Milly and Marianne hung on with their dear life. The bridge swung downward while their screams echoed through the cave.

Meryl witnessed this with an expression of horror. She couldn't bear the thought of losing her friend, the only person who had befriended her the day she had first started out at Bernadelli Insurance Society as a receptionist. It had started out as a college job, a way to stretch dollars while she attended accounting courses at NOVA university. Milly had been the only one who had reached out to her the day she had been assigned the posting.

She had invited Meryl to one of her favorite spots; It was a coffeehouse and bakery all rolled in one. The desserts they produced drew rave reviews, especially the chocolate pecan pie. They had chatted about their hobbies and about various events.

From Milly she had learnt that the founder of the company had split from his rich family over differences in views. From there on he had established the Bernadelli Insurance Society to earn his own way on No Man's Land. It rapidly broke into the marketplace, cleaving customers away from Dotheby's, Maillard Insurers and the Co-Operators Limited, the dominant insurers during the days it was established. Ever since, the Bernadelli Insurance Society had become a permanent fixture on the scene, despite their rivals' attempts to end the upstart in the early days.

However, their competitors' mistakes had fuelled the BIS's rise; in their desperation to reclaim their share, they had sent mercenaries to bully customers into returning. This had the opposite effect; customers rushed into the BIS's arms, tired of strongarm tactics that were standard fare these days. The BIS's good customer service was refreshing and made them very popular. Ever since, the society held a large customer base; it wasn't as big as the more established companies, but it could hold its own.

Ever since that day the duo had been inseparable. Meryl's common sense often kept Milly on track when her ditziness showed up at unfortunate times. She had a tendency to space out at the most embarrassing times especially when there were crucial, and oft-dangerous assignments.

"Let's get going," Ania's voice broke Meryl out of her thoughts. The remaining trio moved through the meandering corridor of the old mines. Much of the valuable material had been mined out, leaving behind pyrite and quartz veins, which were often considered worthless on No Man's Land. Plants often outperformed the materials better in transmitting information because their electromagnetic sensitivity amplified radiowaves, it was claimed.

Although that bit was being questioned by a few scientists, including Ania's own father. He had advocated for adding quartz to help with accuracy in signal receiving and transmitting. There was a reason why many antique clocks from before the Collapse brought over to No Man's Land was so reliable, it was that the quartz acted as a crystal oscillator. It created signals with very precise frequency because when the crystal was exposed to an electric charge, it would bend. Quartz also had a low co-efficient of thermal expansion, which made it much more reliable than metal transmitters on the desert planet the remnants of the seven colony ships lived on, with its scorchingly hot days and freezing cold nights. Although much of the public thumbed their noses at this suggestion, the few that did adopt the suggestion found that their signals and readings were more reliable due to this practice.

But it didn't matter to the government, as retrofitting many systems with the crystals were deemed too expensive. Although Meryl wished they did, as it would help the Bernadelli Insurance Society pinpoint the time many disasters occurred more accurately.

The trio passed past a few abandoned mining cars; some were overturned while other were partially filled with scrap metal that had been left to rust. There were a few skeletons here and there; some of them were of deceased miners while other were people who had wandered into the mines and got lost.

The flickering lights in the corridors were on the verge of dying; they had been on for the last forty years, ever since its abandonment. Ania had assumed that it had been powered by the Plant at Schezar's house.

"What an ass," she muttered under her breath as she recalled Schezar's conniving face. She had hunted men like him during her travels all over the small part of No Man's Land that were inhabited by humanity. Many of them had been driven by pure greed and were highly motivated to do anything to drive off the bounty hunters after them.

The world was vast, and nearly 98% of it was unexplored. People preferred to huddle around the familiar and the few that dare ventured further were widely derided as insane. Especially the prospectors and explorers who dared to venture into caves and the few alien ruins to seek out new and exciting discoveries.

But there were rumours that some had never came out of the caves they were exploring. Others had been found dismembered. The few that had survived were committed to insane asylums, babbling over and over about horrible monstrosities for the rest of their miserable lives.

Ania had never given much stock to them, though. Even if Marianne's sister-in-law was a Reader, her visions was just an isolated instance. She had also brushed off that dream she had a few days as useless.

What mattered to her was that she would live out her life among the teeming masses of humanity, passing from birth to death on the forsaken world that was No Man's Land. Just as Milly, Meryl, Marianne and so many others would eventually do.

"I agree, he's definitely one," Vash answered. The trio used the lights as a guideline to navigate their way out, as well as the waymarkers the miners had left behind. Some of them were mundane signs. They bore either instructions on work safety, warnings of dead ends or arrows that pointed the way to various facilities.

Others were far more eccentric, though. One display was of three anatomical skeletons all seated around a table. One held a cigar between its fingers and had the feet propped up on it, while the other hands held a fan of cards. The others were just as amusing; one was slumped over as if it was drunk, holding a bottle in his hand while the other also held a full hand of cards. The last seemed to be guarding his pile of poker chips, as attested by his furtive posture. Kuroneko-sama sat on the table, staring ceaselessly at the trio.

"This is hilarious!" Ania burst out laughing. The fact that someone had the idea to set up a scene that she had seen dozens of times as she traversed the cities was amusing.

"Isn't it a reference to Amarillo Nights?" Meryl's observation raised eyebrows. The insurance agent was referring to a widely acclaimed film tetralogy that was made in the classic film noir style, set in the fictional city of Amarillo. The main character was a private investigator with chronic alcoholism, and he was caught up in a web of intrigue involving five major players, all with their own ambitions and motives. It had gathered up a cult following in the years since it was released, with numerous analyses and theories being discussed in cafes and in printed material.

"Oh yeah, my dad is a fan of that series," Ania shrugged, "I never understood much of the mumbo-jumbo that many people keep pushing forward."

"Like that one claim that the movies are a dying dream?" Vash chimed in.

"I don't quite get that one, either," Meryl answered.

* * *

"Drink up," Milly blearily blinked. Marianne held up a bowl of water to her lip, and the taller woman gulped greedily. They were on the side of a stream of flowing water, while next to it was a makeshift latrine.

' _Probably for the miners,_ 'Milly thought. Ever since the mine had been abandoned, the disgusting odour that once hung in the air had faded. The duo stood up, wringing off the water from their drenched clothing.

"Vash is definitely a trouble magnet," Marianne pointed out as the duo limped toward the exit of the chamber they had found themselves in.

"Yeah, his nickname is apt," Milly admitted nervously. Moving through the winding corridors of the mine, they passed past a giant carved sculpture of a lucky cat, a pair of fu lions that was set up as markers to one of the cafeterias, and a rather bawdy sculpture that had seen better days. She had blushed brightly at that one, especially when it turned out to be a depiction of the ancient Greek god Priapus.

Inspecting the base, Milly found an inscription on the bottom.

' _Commissoned by one Clayton Schezar, in the year 106 A.B.F_ ,' It read. It was common knowledge that A.B.F was shorthand for after the Big Fall. She searched all over the piece for the signature but couldn't see any.

"Seems like the artist wanted to stay anonymous," Marianne's observation made sense.

"The person who asked for it to be made must've been related to Cliff in some form," Milly added.

"If we could make our way back to the house, I could take a look at the family records to confirm your theory," the blonde woman answered.

"That makes sense," Milly chuckled nervously, rubbing her head.

They came upon a fork in the mines. The signs that had once been there had apparently fallen off. The stalagmites around them had glowing bioluminescent fungus growing on them; apparently, they had been feeding off the guano that the native bats had produced. Milly had an inkling that the phrase 'Bat-shit crazy' had come from the hallucinogenic properties of the substance that the bats of Earth had produced.

"Which way?" The dilemma was clear in both women's minds. Both paths looked similar. Milly found herself thinking back to Ania. What would she do? Scratching her head in confusion, she thought back to her lessons about fungi; on No Man's Land they were frequently found underground because the harsh conditions on the surface weren't conductive to sporogenesis and the normal life cycle of the fungus kingdom.

"If we see receding amounts of these mushrooms, then it's proof we're heading in the right direction," the insurance agent pointed out.

"Good observation," Marianne answered. Each time they found the mushrooms in a path fork, they counted the numbers in order to confirm the theory. It was a mentally tiring endeavour, but it was well worth it when they came out of the mines.

"Thank God for these mushrooms!"

"They saved our necks!"

The two women burst out laughing. The stress of navigating the maze of the mine had taken a toll on their minds, though.

"Let's go back to the house," Marianne had the right idea. Hopefully they would meet up with the other three.

As they approached the abandoned mining town, the first thing Milly had noticed was one building. It was bigger and had three stories, which was a rarity in the town. The only other building this tall was the town hall and like this building, it was beginning to crumble from disuse. A side wall once had been painted a cherry red, with white silhouettes of buxom women posing provocatively all over the building. The sign was made of neon lights not unlike the ones usually found in Neon City.

 _C—yt—'s S—pla-d_ , it read. The two women had assumed that some of the letters had fallen off in the years since the town was abandoned. Entering the building, they saw that the lobby had been painted a deep burgundy colour with a ceiling made of broken mirrors. Milly moved up to the reception and found old, faded business cards scattered across the countertop.

Clayton's Bordello, the older ones read. The more recently printed ones were not unlike the sign outside.

"I found this, Milly. Apparently, it's a news clipping," Marianne held up a piece of paper.

 _MAYOR'S COMMENTS FUELS THE BORDELLO CONTROVERSY EVEN FURTHER_

 _The quarrel over the newly established bordello in Youngstowne has reached new heights._

" _These ladies are here to stay. I ain't pushing them out, I know what happens when we put these ladies on the margins. They get sicker and die quicker than if we keep them indoors where they could get services and protection. Some of these streetwalkers get killed real quick by unsavoury types, too," He was quoted as saying._

 _The representative of the St. Teresa parish, Father Daniel Fattoush is still vocal in his opposition toward the new establishment. His concerns about sex trafficking and abuse is centered around the fact that many of the women had been imported from Neon City, a well-known hub of sexual slavery._

" _Prostitution demeans these young women's dignity and reduce them to nothing more than objects of gratification," He says, "And some of the women I've rescued from that building, they told me they've been beaten when they tried to flee their pimps. A few also told me they were sold to these pimps when they were young children."_

 _Hadley MacIntosh, a prominent anti-trafficking advocate, agrees._

" _Abuse and coercive control is pretty common in sex trafficking," she says._

 _Patsy Bedouin, a local, disagrees with Father Fattoush's assessment. She says that brothels often protect sex workers from the most dangerous elements of society._

" _I was a survivor of the Bedlam Strangler. He strangled me and left me for dead," she says, "That event left mental scars."_

"So, this place was the subject of a heated debate?" Milly's observation was spot on.

"Yeah," Marianne pointed to the name at the bottom of the older business cards.

 _Clayton A. Schezar_ , it read.

* * *

Cliff Schezar seethed in anger as he clenched his shotgun.

' _That slippery bastard, he is so hard to get!'_ He thought. To make it worse, the blue bitch had smoke bombs. She also had the ability to double-jump across chasms, which made the escape much easier on her. The rickety bridge the other three members of the quintet had fled across had broken from years of wear and tear.

Vash's prowess was analogous to that woman and it was because he was a Plant, and one of the few independent ones, as well. He tended to slip out of whatever situation he had gotten himself into. Especially after that fiasco in Old July 20 years ago.

His father had once compared Vash the Stampede to an eel. Fitting.

Looking up at the sky, he could see Uno, Niidama and Cúig. Of the five moons that orbited No Man's land, Quattria was the largest, followed by Cúig, Uno, and Trzy. Niidama was the smallest. Each moon had slightly different colouring, although it was not noticeable to the untrained eye.

Cúig was bluish grey, with maria that vaguely resembled a camel. There were several clusters of craters on the bottom half of the visible side of it, probably a result of meteor showers centuries or millennia ago. The biggest crater there had been named after some mindless scientist called Joe Neumann, who mapped the moon decades ago.

Cliff moved through the town, surveying every corner. Every building in the town were shadows of their old selves. The old tavern, once crowded with patrons, had broken windows and one of the double doors was hanging off a rusty hinge. The theatre, once a community hub for town meetings and local performances, was in a sad state of disrepair. The part housing the inner workings for the stage was beginning to crumble from the harsh winds endemic to No Man's Land. The school, once filled with the chatter of young children and teenagers, fared no better.

The worst was the half-built hospital. When the last mayor was elected, he had vowed to add one. It had taken years of political wrangling, letter writing to receive grants and lot of rejections. But it succeeded, and the town had broke ground on the new building. Everything had gone downhill after that. The rich gold and silver deposits that had sustained Youngstowne had begun to run dry two months after that event, and the townspeople had left the town as mining had been the only source of their livelihoods. Within four years, the town had become a ghost town. Buses were rerouted away from the place and the only time they stopped there was when there was some mechanical malfunction.

He moved to the abandoned town square. The communal well had stood the test of time, although there were some hairline cracks here and there. The statue of the founder had bent over as the metal slowly weakened from the countless contractions and expansions that the day-night cycle had wrought upon it.

Spinning around, he caught a flash of red. Pointing his shotgun in the direction, he moved toward the source, only to find out that it was the remains of an old clothesline. The dye on the only remaining garment had been one of the newer lightfast dyes that had been invented shortly before the Collapse, and the recipe to make it had been brought over to No Man's Land. Although the materials to make it had been near impossible to obtain ever since.

Cliff pressed on, searching every nook and cranny. He was determined to get his hands on the 60 billion dollar bounty on Vash the Stampede's head. Maybe Meryl, Marianne and Milly should be the collateral?

He liked the idea. Formulating this new plan, he decided to lure the trio of civilians and hold them hostage.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

 **Valdoor**

To the average outsider, Valdoor was an unremarkable town with unremarkable inhabitants. It had a populace of around 1,567 people, with the majority concentrated in the north side. It was also remote, with the one of the few access points being by sandsteamer. Although a new coach terminal had been opened last month, it was rarely used.

However, Valdoor had a much more colourful history hidden away from prying eyes. It had begun out as a hideaway established by the playboy bandit Henry Hogan and he had built it to house the harem of pretty young girls & women he had purloined from their families, most against their wishes. They had come from all classes and walks of life, and a few had been betrothed or engaged to others. Hogan had killed the men in these women's lives in order to keep them for himself.

At its height this group consisted of 97 women, ranging from twelve years old to forty. The older women were assigned the task of cleaning and maintaining the household, while the young women were forced to bed Hogan even if they weren't in the mood for intimate encounters.

But Hogan's reign of terror ended six years later when he tried to kidnap the youngest daughter of a prominent Mafiosi don. As usual with encounters with the Augusta mafia, the results weren't pretty. Hogan and his cronies were fed alive to sandworms in the outside ditches of Augusta after an extensive torture session and the women who remained in this hideaway fled the place, many of them with traumatic memories of rape.

Ten years after his death, explorers visiting this place discovered direct-ship iron ores in the caverns underneath the hideaway. Once news got out, miners and mining corporations rushed to the place, eager to exploit the site. The competition was vicious with teams of mercenaries hired by the corporations engaging in shootouts in the mines, thus attracting the government of No Man's Land's attention. They seized the nascent mine, nationalized it so that the problems stopped as soon as possible before spinning the mine off into its own company. It was a success, although it still didn't stop rival corporations from making attempts to buyout it. All failed, because there was a condition that demanded that there be no buyouts for the next one hundred years.

In recent years, there had been a rapid population explosion, fuelled by many of the town's young people starting families of their own. Many permits for new housing had been granted to the point that it was driving Valdoor into debt. Even now, there were debates in the town hall over what to do. Some had suggested that Hogan's old hideaway be opened to tourism, while other suggested renouncing the ban on future buyouts. But a few mavericks had suggested a partnership with the Boulinger Institute for Plant Research with the intent that it be a centre of excellence in prototyping and improving small Plant infrastructure for smaller populaces.

Of course, these individuals were ridiculed everywhere they went. Even the town mayor wasn't amenable with the idea of this kind of partnership, as beneficial as it could be for the growing populace. He shut the door on this course of action.

All these details didn't matter in the mind of the owner of To Tea or Not to Tea, a tea shop in the town that had been acquiring a steadily expanding clientele of fashionable young men and women ever since it was established three years ago. To this young woman, her world revolved around it. Ever since she had awakened in the alleyways of this town, Valdoor had became home to her. She could recall the floating orb who called out to her.

"Wakey, wakey, Guardian," It had said to her in a sing-song voice. She had been confused, but then the thing had held up an ID badge for some kind of company. The logo on it were faded from centuries out in the open, but looked vaguely like a C and B.

 _Sienna Kassman_ , the name on it had read. On the bottom right corner was some symbol that vaguely looked like a I in a circle. Something in it had drawn a twinge of familiarity in the woman's memory and when she read the name out loud, it felt _right_ to be called that.

It wasn't until days later, after Sienna Kassman had secured a rental apartment for herself and her companion in the town that she had recalled that the circled I meant intern. So, she theorized that in her old life, at whatever place she was at she must've been studying to join the ranks of the mystery corporation. It made sense, given the fact that her appearance was that of a young woman in her early twenties.

Of course, her new appearance was vastly different from the photo on the ID. Where it depicted a mousy young woman with a messy pixie cut and heavy-rimmed glasses, Sienna now had waist-length red hair that glowed like the sun. Her hazel eyes also had flecks of gold there.

In the brief flashbacks to her previous life, people had told her that she had the curves of a 1950s housewife, and that she should stop hiding her body. Apparently the one thing that hadn't changed between her past and present life was her figure.

Right now, she was wearing one of her usual dresses, a green shirtwaist dress that was one of her go-to for workdays. It was made of a durable fabric that could hold up to everyday wear and tear. It had an applique that resembled an adorable bird on the shirt pocket that held her trusty ballpoint pen, which she used to records details of what was sold and the supplies she had to order from Octovern.

Her boots were an old standby. it was custom made to fit her narrow feet and was ordered from one of the bootmakers in Valdoor two weeks after she was revived. The studs were placed exactly so it looked like flowers and it was one of the things that she had loved about it.

"One cup of Goji Blissberry," The order from one of her regulars broke Sienna out of her thoughts.

"Coming up," She replied. The tea was one of her most popular. It was a white tea with goji and blueberries mixed in and delivered a double dose of antioxidants. Plus, many people said that the flavour was to die for.

As she took orders, she wrote down the inventory for the week. As usual, Goji Blissberry and Orange Clove Golden Rings were running low, they had been among the earliest flavours she had developed when she had opened shop. They had been runaway successes, far outstripping the other six flavours invented.

As the day winded down, she began the process of closing her shop.

"It was a good day today," Her companion and Ghost, Albert replied. He was a jumpy little thing, though. Although he didn't like Sienna's little venture, he held his tongue. Although the fact that she donated some of her money to fund charities that paid for travel expenses for families with ill children raised her standing in the community, though.

"Yeah, no Nebraska idiots to shake down our business," That subject left a sour taste in her taste. Despite her warning to the town mayor not to hire the family, he went forward, and the damage they caused made the town's debt problem even worse. And there were rumours that the Nebraskas also had unpaid debts that they adamantly refused to pay.

"What a bunch of psychopaths," Albert's observation made sense. It was clear to Sienna that they were prone to shoot people over minor irritations, and it had cost the town a few lives.

First was James Henderson, a single father of four, he was shot in broad daylight by the youngest member, Chinpei. It was instantly fatal. Then Naomi Windenreich, a single woman had followed. She had been raped to death by Kanta after she had rejected his advances. Sylvia Heinrichs and Orison Scott had followed soon after; they had been the victims of a shootout between the two younger brothers.

And the town was getting fed up with them. There had been calls from the public to remove the mayor, who had been proven to be incompetent with each passing year. The town council had resisted them, and it was rumoured that they had Mafia connections.

* * *

 **Abandoned Town**

The Federal Bureau of Fraud Investigation was to consumer fraudsters everywhere what the falcones were to the Augusta Mafia. It was dogged in its determination to hunt down people who conned others out of their hard-won money be it through confidence tricks, wanted ads, and telephone scams. Their other responsibilities were investigating pyramid schemes at the direction of the Comptroller General. Of course, in the past other agencies had done the dirty work but so far, the Bureau had proven themselves to be the best at that kind of thing. They were thorough in their work, often double-checking things in order to make sure they had factually correct information.

Marianne Aura Cayzen was one of their best agents. Last month, her grandfather had assigned her to investigate the Schezar family after the Augusta Dominion Bank reported some irregularities in activities. This had led her here to the ghost town of Youngstowne.

It had had been one of her most dangerous investigations and to facilitate it, her grandfather had provided her with forged papers from the Stantal Federal Bureau, another long-defunct governmental division that had been folded under the wing of the FBFI a long time ago. Although she had spent ten years as the local town marshall of Lewiston Town before she was selected to be among the elite of the organization after a long, exhaustive process of referrals and vetting, it had been emotionally draining.

The reason was that the Schezars' ancestors were known to be consmen at the dawn of what would come to be the current era. However, even if these irregularities turned out to be benign, there were a lot of skeletons in the Schezars' closet. Especially the part about Clayton A. Schezar. After she had consulted with her grandfather, she had found out that he had been arrested for assaulting an ex-lover in his youth. It had something to do with debts she had owed him.

It turned out that the man was also the kind of pimp who withheld money from the women he lorded it over. There was also confirmation that Clayton was Cliff's great-uncle. After his murder by rivals in the Scarlet Jesters, his young daughters were sold into prostitution by the man he had entrusted to care for them. The irony of such a situation wasn't lost upon Marianne.

He had been exiled from Youngstowne long before that event occurred by Cliff's great-grandmother because his behaviour had become deleterious to the family's reputation. His partying and lechery had resulted in several sex assaults, some of them public. To make it worse there were rumours he often slipped Mickeys into the drinks of attractive young women, abducted them and forced them to work in his bordello in the town.

The controversy over the place had persuaded the woman to exile him as she had believed that Clayton would pose a continuing danger to the young women and girls in Youngstowne, and rightly so. Especially after the revelations that he had molested the youngest daughter of the superintendent of the school had came to light.

"I found these letters," Milly Thompson was carrying a box containing letters into the room.

"Where did you find them?"

"In the old hope chest in the attic," she answered nervously.

Looking over them she had found out that they were correspondence between Cliff's aunt and Clayton. Some of them were discussing past scams that their ancestors had ran, while other exposed the conditions of the times they were written in, like the food shortage in the Octovern area caused by a malfunctioning part in the Plant containers that wasn't caught in time.

But one letter stood out from the rest.

 _April 16, ABF 115_

 _Dearest Clayton,_

 _I hope this letter found you in good health. As for the funds, I have transferred them through encrypted channels. They may come in handy when building your new place. The authorities are getting wise to our activities, and they have raided places where our shell corporations were situated. Luckily, Father has stashed the funds somewhere they won't be found. He has also found people who will act as our mules in wanted ads, and he'll keep moving money from the scheme he has been running for years along._

 _Uncle Thaddeus has disowned this family. For good. He has given information that have led to this. He wants us to stop exploiting vulnerable people, but it's family tradition. I'm sure that we wouldn't have gotten to where we are now it not for Anton's efforts. He's the founder of our noble lineage for a reason._

 _On an otherwise sad note, Grandma Nancy has passed away from pancreatic cancer. It was a swift and painless death for one so old. She led a full and happy life with her loved ones, and it is something I made peace with._

 _Best of luck,_

 _Myra Schezar_

The aforementioned letter was just one of many pieces of evidence that Marianne had found that had incriminated the entire Schezar family. Although she wouldn't reveal what she was doing to her temporary allies, yet.

"So, the Schezars had their dirty little secrets?" Milly's question was expected.

"Yes."

"No wonder Cliff was gunning for Vash," She scratched the back of her head in embarrassment, "I bet that the Schezars eventually lost track of that money stash."

"If that really did happen… then it would explain why Cliff was selling water to pay for the upkeep of the Plant machines in the basement," Marianne returned her attention to the letter.

"And the fact that it was never sent indicated that Clayton's murder probably occurred a few days before it was supposed to be done," Milly's observation was spot-on.

* * *

The former market square was a miserable sight. Overturned milk and fruit crates littered the grounds, while the stands were on the verge of collapsing. The nearby town well was now a pile of rocks, as well as the nearby retaining wall that was supposed to hold water for the greenhouses that would have been placed there. However, this planned project had never come to fruition thanks to the depleted mines.

The vacant lot next to the market hadn't fared any better. It had been designated as parkland, as photos of the ground-breaking ceremony on the bulletin boards there had shown. The drafts of the plan had shown a winding path, with shrubs and trees lining it. In the northwest there would have been a moderate-sized playground. It would have had a merry-go-round, two structures with varying levels and an infant area.

Vash peered over the stands. Some of them had outright punny names. Like _From Dust until Dawn_ and _Amanda Huggenkiss' Chocolate Kisses_. And other were bizarre world salads. Like _Meaningless Bigotry_ and _Accumulated Ballast_.

What were these owners thinking when they picked these words? He had an inkling that these owners were non-English-speaking.

Ania Solezulam had snorted at Huggenkiss's stand. From what Vash had assumed, it probably brought up memories for her.

"That name reminds me of the prank calls that I made to various businesses when I was a teenager," She answered, "Used a lot of double entendres. Some of them were ones I invented, and others had existed for a long time."

"Good one!" He laughed out loud, causing Meryl Stryfe to sweatdrop.

"Isn't Amanda Huggenkiss's name from one of these old TV shows?" Meryl's question shocked Ania. Now that the bounty hunter thought about, it made sense. The reason that it had lasted that long was that it had been etched indelibly in humanity's psyche for centuries, thanks to the mass media that existed long before the Collapse.

The creator of that punny name was someone called…Matt or was its Mark? The surname was Groening, a surprisingly common surname on No Man's Land. That detail was one that was somewhat unimportant in her mind.

As the trio moved down abandoned buildings, occasionally they would encounter old advertisements for various products, some of them outright ridiculous. Like the one that offered _condiments_ for _dogs_. Another had shown canned _whole_ chicken. Meryl did a double take at that one, while Ania and Vash snickered again.

Although they could see the utility in such a thing thanks to No Man's Land's harsh climate. Even though refrigeration was common, many towns didn't have the necessary Plant infrastructure to make such a thing possible.

The trio passed past faded murals of famed local celebrities, including Shane "The Irish Giant" Giles. He was a famed prizefighter who had passed away last year at the age of seventy-four after a lengthy battle with dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known to the public as punch-drunk syndrome.

It had made Ania recall the school bully, who was the alternate captain of the varsity soccer team. After she had assisted one of the girls in exposing his misdeeds, including a sex assault on school grounds, he was expelled. All his scholarships were annulled after it turned out his father had hired people to correct test scores. This individual then turned to mixed martial arts as way to earn his way after he and his family were made social pariahs because of their unacceptable behaviour, including his father's arrest on child molestation charges and his mother on corruption charges. That one had came about because she had tried to bribe a detective to overlook her role in enabling her son. Of course, the detective reported that to his superior and the bitch was booked.

Years later, Ania had found out that the young man had died during an illegal match in April after he was expelled from the United Fighting League over allegations that he had beaten his porn star girlfriend. _That_ incident was caught on closed circuit cameras at the luxury condo they lived at. The autopsy indicated that he had died from massive cerebellar hemorrhaging. To put it in layman terms, he had bled so much in his cerebellum to the point it killed him.

Unsurprisingly, April was one of many hubs of such activities because laws there were relatively lax when it came to blood sports. There were cockfighting, dogfights and even underground elements had humans fighting to the death there. When she had asked her father about these things as a naïve preteen while visiting the city, he scowled.

"Animal cruelty has been repeatedly linked to many social ills. When people are insensitive to the suffering of animals, they are more likely to injure or outright kill others," he explained. Looking back on that, his observations made sense in the context of April's high homicide and crime rates. To made it worse, April had a problem with numerous cold case murders that had the exact same operandi modus. The intruder would break into the homes of young, nubile women who lived alone and rape & strangle them to death. This individual would then pose them in sexually charged poses before exiting the house through another window or door. The families of the victims pressed the police of April to address the problem, but they were repeatedly ignored. Especially since this phenomenon appeared to be the work of a serial killer.

"There she is!" Vash's outburst interrupted Ania's thoughts. Perched up on an old lamppost was Kuroneko-sama. At the bottom was another skeleton propped up against it. The sign propped up on the ribs read, ' _Seeking money for fares to Valdoor, plus food & board. God bless_.'

Ania inspected the skeleton. Giving it a kick, she watched as it crumbled into a heap.

"This skeleton obviously must've been here for a long time," Her comment was spot on.

"Yeah, whoever used to be this skeleton must've starved to death," Meryl observed.

Vash reached into the pockets of the trousers and pulled out a wallet. Pulling out a government-issued ID card, he read it out loud.

"Rajput Vishkar, gender was male, birthplace was New Delhi, he was approximately five feet six inches, and he had black hair and brown eyes."

"But who was this individual exactly?"

"There was a rumour that his family was once high-caste, but whatever happened during the Collapse made their family the lowest caste," Ania thought out loud.

"I think it has to do with the loss of whatever wealth they once held," Meryl pointed out, "In Indian castes, the wealthiest castes are often called Brahmin, which mean head. The lowest are called Dalit- that mean untouchables. The conditions they work and live in are terrible."

"So, if this loss of wealth happened before the Big Fall…"

"Then the decline in standing and status resulted in the Vishkars becoming Dalits," Vash answered, "It all makes sense, the skeleton was a Dalit man migrating toward Valdoor in hope for a better life!"

"If you say so...," Meryl sweat-dropped. The reality is that the Indian caste system was much more complicated than that. It was made of gotras, with sub-gotras added in. She had navigated much of it while working insurance claims in New Delhi.

"One of my dad's colleagues is of Indian descent and from what he'd told me, that person absolutely despised the caste system. He even went as far to publicly disown his own biological family for supporting such a travesty," Ania added.

* * *

 **The Guardians Dorms**

The chest of mementoes was a charming little thing. It was painted sky blue, with traditional Samoan designs painted all over in black and white. It was built in a lingerie chest style, with bronze-plated knobs that Tamah Fiso had found at one of the city's hardware stores.

She pulled one of the drawers out and looked at the contents. All of them brought back memories of Sione's infancy. She recalled how civilians in the Tower had helped her with the impeding arrival of her son, with Eva Levante advising her to put her nesting urges to work.

And she had done exactly that, attending basket weaving classes so she could build a traditional Samoan cradle for Sione to sleep in after his birth. Others had donated Sione's crib to him and one of the Stoneborn Titans had built a toy box for him from wood he had cut down outside the City.

The first few weeks were a total blur, and predictably, Tamah had took on the zombie-like appearance that many new parents often bore after the birth of their babies. It was often hilariously lampshaded in memes passed around the City.

There was an adorable striped onesie that Taeko had found at a store near Bannerfall. And a cute overall set that Eva Levante had sewn from left over materials. A pair of tiny knitted booties that she had made from sheer boredom, and a knitted set of hat and scarf that had came from Zavala.

Then there was one of her personal favorites. The black onesie that Zeon-4 and Keisha Murphy had found in Harmington district was on sale, with a steep 20% discount.

' _The snuggle is real_ ,' it read in big bold red letters. Tamah had been tickled pink when she had received that gift. It had appeared in many pictures of Sione during his first few months on earth.

Another gift was a hand-carved rattle from a former member of the Firebreak Order. Benjamin Sherman, that guy was always getting in trouble everywhere he went. Even if his biracial looks made him a strikingly handsome cad, he had the annoying tendency to mouth off at inconvenient times.

The results were often predictable. Especially when he provoked someone's ire. No wonder Zavala had his hands full with disciplinary citations for him.

Not to mention the fact that Benjamin had been banned from the Blustery Brew, too. Although he was a reliable combatant, his issues were…to put it delicately, problematic. Even if the Sunbreaker couldn't remember where these problems came from, Tamah had suspected that these outbursts hinted at something traumatic in his previous life.

The Gunslinger Cam Atepa sure had that in her previous life. When the woman had shown Tamah her journal, she had been aghast at the revelations. It explained the various scars on her backs and palms. And her frequent panic attacks in public.

"What's this, tina?" Sione's voice interrupted Tamah's thoughts. He held up some Awoken device. On the bottom a name was written.

 _Baruch Kovj_

"That was something that probably belonged to your tama," She answered. "Where did you find it?"

"I found it in an old chest in one of the empty dorms," He answered.

"That thing is an advanced Awoken memory recording device," Iakopo, Sione's new ghost answered. It was a young one, probably around Sione's age.

"Iakopo is correct," Michael added as he hovered above the device, "Let's see."

The elder ghost activated the device.

" _Baruch, if this recording reaches you it may be years before my remains have been recovered. Our parents were eager to add me to the ranks of the Techeuns, as family tradition has dictated. But my true calling laid somewhere._

 _When I visited that abandoned ruins near our home, it seeded within me a fascination with the technology that sustain these beings that the people of the Golden Age called Plants. I have exhaustively catalogued possible research facilities and intend to visit each one in order to learn about these beings. I realized that it would be very, very dangerous work, but the risks are worth it. Especially if we could replicate the Plant technology and apply them to the Dreaming City. The Queen will be pleased that we could break free from our shackles to the Traveller._

 _But I was ambushed by the House of Devils on the way here, and with no way off this forsaken asteroid I might die here. Sorry if I failed you and our parents,"_ A young Awoken woman with green eyes and straight raven hair in a pixie cut spoke, occasionally pausing to inspect various instruments and write down various notes. She was clad in the robes of a Techeun initiate, but that lower half had been cut off to reveal red-striped leggings and practical combat boots.

" _The first clues I found was A-23- S-,"_ the recording abruptly cut off, leaving the mother-son duo confused.

"Seems that the batteries had run out," Iakopo commented.

"I think that was Baruch's sister from a previous life," Michael added.

It was a rule of thumb that most Guardians never spoke of or even explored their previous lives. Ana Bray was one of the few exceptions and it was something that grated on Zavala's nerves. Even if that embarrassing call-sign popped up from his old life, he refused to acknowledge that.

It was still funny to hear that Zavala had least lost composure in his previous life. Especially if the accounts of him vomiting on some higher-up's footwear after a bout of training in zero-gee were accurate.

And Barin-23's tendency to accidently break things had also produced several hilarious situations. Yesterday he had broke several biscuit ware creations while assisting one of the potters in the local kiln near the New Monarchy headquarters. It had turned in quite the spectacle involving the domino effect, 250 broken ceramic vases & jars and a bunch of staring civilians. No wonder the Exo was quite embarrassed and promptly vanished like a Hunter on skedaddle. But not before he had offered an apology and glimmer to pay for the damage he'd caused.

* * *

The City's archive was overflowing with information on various topics. Especially the archives on Clovis Bray. From what Hachiyama Taeko knew, the Owl Sector were responsible for these assets as well.

She sighed for the umpteenth time. Whatever information on this logo she had found was sparse. It had pointed toward a smaller competitor, as it had been confirmed that there were multiple corporations during the Golden Age. But Clovis Bray had dominated the market on nearly everything, including colonization. Although the Exodus project was Clovis Bray's own attempt at colonization, she couldn't shake the feeling that there were more to the SEEDS projects.

As if there were things missing that shouldn't be.

"Hello!" A familiar voice broke the Voidwalker out of her thoughts. Banshee-12, the Titan waved from her spot. She was sitting at the table, reading some ancient poetry.

"It's good to see you again, Banshee," Taeko moved over to the table.

"Another day, another calamity to clean up," she laughed out.

"Idiocy never ceases to amuse!"

The two burst out laughing.

"Remember when Keisha was banned from every karaoke bar in the city?"

"And Baruch was the unwitting victim of Noriko's prank?"

After calming down from the fit of laughter they had, Taeko sat down. Shoving the mystery logo over to Banshee, she steeled herself for the explanation.

"I found this a few days ago in a book I borrowed from the Warlock archives," she said.

"This logo seems familiar, there have been a few things recovered bearing it," The Striker replied, "But not to the extent of Clovis Bray."

The female Exo led Taeko past numerous bookshelves, a sculpture made by Barin-23, and another series of study bays to a display.

"Here it is," Banshee-12 pointed to a piece of ship hull. There, the same logo could be seen. Another item sat next to it. It seemed to be something that would be used to store vast amounts of data.

' _Maybe an AI central hub of some kind,'_ Taeko theorized, as she could also see the logo on it, too.

"Can you scan the data box, Oda?" she asked.

" _Hai_ , Taeko," Her ghost emerged from his hiding place. Hovering over it, he fired a scanning beam at it.

"It's a black box," he explained, "Much of the data was too degraded, but among the snippets I extracted from it was a list of employees associated with Project ICELION, and yours were among these names."

"So, my dreams are now confirmed to be flashbacks," the Warlock sighed, "Why would they resurface at this time?"

"They have a purpose, Hachiyama Taeko. In order to find the lost colony ships, you must learn who you once were," The Speaker's cryptic reply interrupted her musings.

She let out a 'eep' at the sudden appearance of the head of the Consensus.

"We weren't expecting you," Banshee-12 was just as shocked as her friend.

"The Traveller told me that these memories are vital to the mission," the Speaker explained.

"But would that violate the rules!?"

Taeko facepalmed at Banshee-12's outburst.

"Exceptions apply in rare cases," the old priest pointed out.

* * *

"Am not!"

"You are, you snot-nosed ass!"

"You fucking ugly cow, I'm not—,"

"You are-,"

Mirai Harding had walked into yet another round of bickering between Benjamin Sherman and one of the members of the Praxic Order, a young woman called Ada Ross. She was a powerful Sunsinger who was capable of decimating large numbers of enemies with a single application of her Radiance.

Benjamin had his charcoal hair tied back in his usual beaded cornrows. His mud brown eyes glared over at her, even as he gesticulated wildly while screaming at her. His coffee-coloured skin had a scattering of freckles over it.

Ada Ross was petite all the way through, with raven hair that was cut in a severe bob. Her light-coloured skin was translucent, and her large lips had satin-textured maroon lipstick meticulously applied on. She more than made up for her size with her straitlaced personality, as her preference for practical styles and colours had shown.

"What's going on?"

"That meathead changed the channel to watch the Crucible! I was in the middle of my favorite soap opera, and he-,"

"That bitch wanted to watch _Valerian Downs_! That show is the _fucking_ most _boring thing_ on television!"

Ada reached to bonk Benjamin on the head, but the Titan blocked her hand.

Mirai rolled her eyes, before she sighed.

"By the Traveller, why can't you agree on one thing?" she put her hands on her hips, glaring at the two like a mother would to two very problematic children.

Both gulped loudly, as it was well-known among the Guardians that Mirai was the team mom on her respective fireteams and was often called up to meditate disputes in other groups.

Although there were rumours that Benjamin and Ada had the hots for each other. Both had steadfastly denied it, even when others had asked the questions. Their reaction was predictable, with lots of stammering and blushing. Mirai found it hilarious, though. Both complemented the other very well. Ada's no-nonsense demeanour often served to tame Benjamin's reckless tendencies. In his presence, she seemed more spontaneous and happier.

But even then, the duo was in deep denial over their romantic feelings. And it didn't help that Benjamin was having libidinous dreams about Ada in his sleep. The walls between the dorms were infamously thin, though.

* * *

 **Ghost Town**

The formerly stately home of the Schezars came into visibility of the trio.

"Traveller, what a night," Ania sighed.

"Same old shit, same old shit," Vash grunted out an agreement.

"At least we got away from Schezar," Meryl added.

If there was one thing that the insurance agent had learned about Vash the Stampede, it was that he was the king of trouble magnets on No Man's Land. It was all thanks to that annoying bounty that he had on his world. Even if he obfuscated his intelligence to hide his presence, bounty hunters of all stripes still pursued him for his bounty.

Ania was an exception. She had no interest in it, though. But why? This question had whirled in her head all this while slogging the way back to the manor.

Maybe it was because Ania preferred the low-hanging fruit to minimize damage to innocent civilians and buildings? That incident in Octovern was proof that she had learnt a harsh lesson especially when her recklessness had injured or killed others.

And the mysterious entity she worshipped? Meryl didn't quite understand that stuff. Maybe it had something to do with before the Collapse? No, that was a ludicrous theory. Sighing again, Meryl decided that these matters would be left unturned.

Opening the door, the trio mumbled curses under their breath.

"It's good to see you guys again," Milly laughed out loud. Meryl let out a big sigh of relief, at least her wayward partner was safe.

"Yeah, last night was quite the frigging ride," she stated, "Can't believe you actually survived that bridge."

"Not to mention the mines are a veritable maze. We had to use fungi to navigate our way out," Marianne chimed in.

"We found some stuff about the Schezar family," Milly added.

"It may be better to move somewhere with a modicum of privacy," Marianne added, "Can't risk any prying ears."

There were murmurs of agreement.

* * *

The bedroom Marianne had chosen was wallpapered in flamingo pink and chocolate brown. Along the bottom mahogany panelling ran around the room, while the ceiling medallion depicted stylized depictions of roses and daffodils. The six-armed chandelier were shaped to look like blossoming daffodils; it was wrought in yellow brass.

The carved four-poster bed was massive. The quintet swore that it could sleep four fully-grown people, although they had niggling suspicions that it had …ahem, other uses they'd rather not entertain in their heads. Especially at this important moment.

"So, what's up with the Schezar family?" Meryl had broached the topic.

"Yeah, I don't understand the whole shebang here. Please explain," Ania had added.

"The Schezars were well-known fraudsters," Marianne explained, "Over many years, they have conned a great deal of people out of their hard-earned money."

"From what I've recall, some scams on No Man's Land are very common. Call centres, 419, work-at-home, credit repair, and unemployment scams are some of the things I can think of. Others include people posing as psychic or spiritual advisers," Ania added.

"And some of the largest frauds in recent years have been committed behind respectable names," Vash pointed out, "You told us about that company you once worked for, Meryl."

"Yeah, it was quite the scandal."

"I recall a few decades ago, some wealthy socialite was duped by a bogus psychic adviser. Conned the poor lady out of half her entire fortune. She wound up on the streets after losing the other half on some bad bets at the April Derby," Milly added.

"And that fake socialite Marcia Bellini?"

"Oh, yeah! She pulled off her act so well, a movie was made about the whole mess last year," Ania commented, "Watched it. It was one of the best I've seen in a while."

"Yes, the real name of that woman was Marcia Barnes," Milly added, "From what I've heard, she had been aspiring to be a 'it girl' for a long time."

"Most likely there's an element of narcissism in her fame-seeking,"Ania added.

"Her parents overindulged her. Her peers said that as a child, she threw fits and tantrums when she didn't get her way. She was raised in the lap of luxury but lost it all in her teens when her parents were forced to disown her by her own grandparents. They were seriously concerned about how the parents' attitudes were contributing to an irresponsible and delinquent member. Guess these concerns were validated," Marianne crossed her arms, "The trial detailed much of the problems that Marcia had with juvie during the time she was kicked out of her family's manor."

"Not to mention that her time there probably made her a better grifter," Ania thought out loud, "It's hard not to be influenced by negative attitudes when you're rotting away in jail."

"That is the point, Ania. Anton F. Schezar, the founder of the Schezar family had numerous stints in various jails on fraud charges," Marianne replied.

"And it made his tendencies worse?" Meryl's question was expected.

"Yes,"

"If you say that the Schezar ancestor was a consman himself, it wouldn't be hard to see how his habit of scamming other people got passed down," Vash stretched and popped his neck, before continuing, "Although would it be possible the family scammed insurance companies as well?"

"Now that I think about it, it's a real possibility. I may have to consult my superiors as well," Meryl replied.

* * *

Cliff Schezar gripped his gun tighter. He had discarded the shotgun for the revolver he had kept in a drawer in his office. It had once been his grandfather's. It had been handed down to him from his father after his sudden death from a brain aneurysm. This had occurred over two decades and a half ago. To made it worse, his grandfather had passed over the man and handed the estate directly to Cliff, against his father's wishes to maintain it himself.

This had occurred because of the man's chronic alcoholism. He was always seen drunk, and the man had stashed drinks everywhere. And he often assaulted bartenders who refused to serve him. This had resulted in one of them being outright killed. The man had the foresight to put the body in the incinerator in the basement, and nobody was none the wiser to what went down.

Cliff had no doubts that the man would sell the house so he could buy more liquor to imbibe. No wonder his grandfather favoured him and handed the deed over to him on his deathbed over 30 years ago.

He had also bribed officials to overlook certain aspects of his relatives' activities as he wanted to keep the dirty laundry away from the public. Even though the heyday of grifting was long gone, thanks to great-uncle Thaddeus' snitching on several key scams, Cliff still held on to several things that the Schezars had gotten with their ill-gotten money. Among them was paintings of his relatives, including his second cousin once removed. And others were expensive jewelry that his aunt had commissioned for her upcoming wedding. These included a ruby & diamond tiara and matching bangles.

Aunt Myra had also bought a designer wedding gown. But the authorities had seized the dress as it was being shipped toward its destination and auctioned it off to pay off the victims of his great-grandfather's many scams. No wonder there weren't any photos of it.

He had laid down the next phases of his new plan. The first plans were to ambush Marianne, Meryl and Milly while these three were alone. But the problem is, how to do it?

Walking down the hallways he happened to overhear a conversation.

"—any information on the Schezars please-,"

"—rumours that one particular fraud-,"

Cliff gripped his gun tighter.

Peeking into the crack of the door, he could see his targets conversing. Meryl seem to be talking on her cellphone, while Milly and Marianne were absorbed in conversation.

It was the perfect time to spring his plans.


End file.
